Finding Avalon
by IseultLaBelle
Summary: It's been eight years since Ethan developed the first symptoms of Huntington's disease and walked out on Alicia. Now, she's finally tracked him down to a small residential clinic in Somerset, and she's determined to get him back. But with so much time lost between them, can things ever be the same?
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Of course, the heavens would open the minute they set off for the train station.

Years ago, back in her junior doctor years, she would have seen the joy in it, the unexpected, the dark clouds all of a sudden looming overhead out of nowhere, the cascade of rain soaking her through, the sudden chill, the shock and the surprise and the reminder from Mother Nature that life is so beautifully unpredictable. She would have skipped through it shrieking at the top of her lungs like a small child, not a care in the world, the fact that she had left her umbrella by the front door and it being far too late to turn back now the furthest thing from her mind.

She was a different person, then.

That was another lifetime, a lifetime when the world was serene and divine and all at her fingertips, a lifetime when she truly believed with every part of her that everything happened for a reason, when she was impulsive, caution to the wind, lived in the moment cherished every second, carefree, happy.

If only she had known then that nothing lasts forever.

Perhaps she would have held onto those moments just a little tighter.

It's as though Mother Nature is crying with her. It would be today; it's as though someone up there knows, knows where they're going and the hell it's going to be and is trying to show some empathy… pathetic fallacy, her English Lit teacher would have called it, a lifetime ago.

Alicia used to love rain.

Today, it only seems to accentuate her misery.

They hold hands and they run and they don't stop until they're through the doors of the train station, utterly soaked and half laughing, half crying, weighed down with the emotions of it all.

Except that part's just her, Alicia realises, digs her purse out the bottom of her handbag for the train tickets (miraculously, only slightly damp).

She's carrying this burden for both of them; most of it, at least.

"Platform 3, then." Alicia hands over the second ticket, winces a little at the painful reminder in the far corner, small print.

Holby to Castle Cary isn't exactly cheap.

It had better be worth it.

 _He_ had better be worth it.

"My socks are wet."

She sighs; the whole excursion already has an impending sense of doom surrounding it and they aren't even out of Holby. "I know. We'll get you dry ones out the suitcase once we're on the train, yeah? But first we're getting coffee. God, I need the caffeine."

"Can I have coffee too?"

"No, you can't, you can have orange juice, or we can compromise on a hot chocolate if you promise you aren't going to moan the whole journey, okay?"

She probably should have known better than to hand over her credit card, but she's cold and she's soaked and there's a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach she can't shake and she feels as though she's suffocating, and if the possibility of excessive caffeine purchases and the inevitable hyper-activeness on a is the price she has to pay for a few quiet moments to compose herself, then she'll take it now and suffer the consequences later.

Alicia doesn't know if she can do this.

It's taken weeks to even make it this far, to narrow down the address, to buy the train tickets, book the annual leave, throw some clothes and a stack of coloured pens and paper and god-awful slime made out of contact solution and PVA glue and all the other paraphernalia into a suitcase, and then there's all the times last night she lay awake and almost bottled out, psyched herself up and then told herself she couldn't do it and somehow managed to psych herself up again, a vicious cycle, nervous, just a little panicked.

Eight years. She's been waiting for this moment for eight years, and now it's finally here Alicia doesn't know if she can do it.

She's halfway through reapplying her lipstick, fixing her hair, when the moment of truth comes.

"What did you get?" Alicia eyes the takeaway cups suspiciously.

Wide blue eyes meet hers, oh-so-innocent. "Latte with coconut milk, no sugar."

"And?"

"Babycino. I asked for a mocha with coconut milk and caramel syrup, but the lady said this was better."

"Oh, she did, did she? That was nice of her." Alicia makes a mental note to leave the barista an enormous tip.

"Do you think it has caffeine in it?"

"Oh, definitely," Alicia lies. "Loads of caffeine. Loads and loads. Right, can you carry that, then?"

"Uh huh."

"Okay. Come on, then." _Please don't drop it_ , Alicia groans under her breath. She gathers together the bags, cake tin wedged precariously under her arm, leads the way out onto the platform. "And you can look at the guidebook on the train, yeah? It's going to be like going on holiday. Right, come on, I've got the bags, you hold that and find us seats."

Somehow, she manages to heave the suitcases up onto the overhead luggage rack, groans as she realises half her latte is most likely going to be long gone by the time she catches up.

"Mammy, over here!"

Her mobile vibrates in her pocket. "Okay, I'm coming, darling."

Elle. _Thinking of you and C today. You know you can call me anytime. Take care x_

This is it, Alicia tells herself. This is it, there's so much riding on this. She's never going to get another chance like this again, not unless she waits another eight years, at least. She'll be sixteen then… he'll have missed so much…

He's missed so much already, but somehow another eight years feels as though it will simply be too late.

She tries not to remind herself that it could be, that his time could be up by then for all she knows.

She isn't his consultant, but she's read all the medical journals, she knows how this goes. He could be anywhere between symptoms barely there and full blown by now and she just doesn't know; that's what makes this so horribly hard.

She knows so little. That's part of the trouble; it's fear of the unknown, because so much has changed in the eight years since he went away and she knows it will be the same for him, too, that there's so much distance between them now, lives lived, eight years of his life she hasn't a clue about and eight years of hers he should, eight years he should have been there for, eight years he chose to walk away from.

She hasn't grilled Charlie for details. She had tried, at first, when he had first pulled her to one side after shift, taken her out for a drink and gently broken the news to her, handed over the name of the clinic. She had begged and pleaded, but he had insisted he knew so little himself; just small details, via a friend of a friend, didn't feel able to ask any more and she had believed him with every fibre of her existence, because it's Charlie, because she refuses to believe Charlie has ever lied to anyone in all his years.

She could have phoned, Alicia supposes. She could have phoned, but somehow that idea seemed even more terrifying.

He could have put the phone down had she called. He could have slammed the phone down the moment he heard her voice and that would have been the end of it, she would have had to let him go for good and Alicia isn't ready to do that. She wasn't ready when he left and she's no more ready to do it now, still clinging to the faintest threads of hope she suspects have withered away to nothing after all these years.

At least this way, face to face, he'll have to hear her out.

And if it comes to it, Alicia doesn't think he'll have it in him to throw out them both.

She hopes not, at least.

She knows hoping isn't always enough when it comes to Huntingtons, but she doesn't want to believe it.

"Mammy!"

"I know, I know, I'm coming." Alicia sighs, a nervous wreck again, slips along the walkway into the free seat. Okay, I've got Harry Potter, or I've got colouring? Or we can look at the guidebook. We need to decide where we want to go, so there's a cave, or we can walk up the tor…"

"What's a tor?"

"It's like a hill, it's just a weird name for a hill, I think. There's a church on the top, or the remains of a church, anyway, the tor's supposed to be where King Arthur lived. You know about King Arthur, right?" This is Alicia's next distraction technique; she's already lining it up in case it all goes horribly wrong later, ordered the Michael Morpurgo version from Amazon in preparation because hers must be the only child on the planet who actually enjoys museums and history books, and something inside her suspects that she is going to need anything and everything at her disposal as a distraction technique today. (And, of course, the Michael Morpurgo legends of King Arthur is the only one just about on her level, she nearly bombed history at school). "The tor was supposed to have been in Avalon…"

"Where Daddy is?"

"What, no... where did you see that?"

"You left the sticky note on the kitchen table."

"Oh, okay." She's been losing her grip, these last few weeks, she's usually better at parenting than this. "No, Daddy's in the Avalon Clinic, it's just a name. Avalon's where King Arthur lived, in the legend, it's just an old story. It's supposed to have been somewhere near Glastonbury, that's why the clinic's called that. Loads of things in Glastonbury are called Avalon. So we can climb the tor, yeah? What else do you want to do?"

"Will we take Daddy?"

"I… I don't know, sweetheart," Alicia admits. "We'll have to see. Daddy isn't very well, I explained that, didn't I? I really don't know, he might not be well enough…"

Or he might want them gone before they're even through the door, of course, but Alicia can't bring herself to voice that possibility.

She sleeps on the first train. She sleeps until a small hand shakes her shoulder and they change at London Paddington, lug the suitcases across the platform and onto train number two, no seats left and so they perch on the edge of the spare baggage rack, squashed together, hearts beating fast, synchronised.

There's so much. Eight years when it's been just the two of them, a clock that can't be turned back, no matter how much Alicia wishes for it to be possible, wishes she could do it for _him_. First steps, first words, first day at school, first trip to the ED, first time in resus (that was an accident, she'd left Elle's boys in charge, not a mistake she's likely to make again any time soon). It's all gone, immortalised forever in Alicia's memories, in photos, in the odd home video but none of it will ever be the same, can't make up for the eight years in which he wasn't there.

Eight years.

She wouldn't take back her decision for a moment, but it's been so bloody hard.

She didn't sign up for single parenthood.

And the worst of it is she knows Ethan would have been a bloody good father, if only it hadn't been for this bloody disease.

They're both silent in the taxi to the clinic. They go straight there; there's no point going to the hotel first, Alicia reasons, it's too early to check in and it's in the wrong direction anyway. She'll sweet talk the receptionist at the clinic into letting her dump their bags behind the front desk, get over there first, get this over with.

She doesn't know if she'll have the strength to go through with it if she doesn't do it fast.

Hand in hand, shaking with the cold and the nerves and the emotion of it all, uneasy, they walk up the pathway to the visitors' entrance together.

They're both shaking, Alicia realises. It's not just her, they're both shaking.

She's been trying so hard to keep this as calm and as natural as possible, because it's not fair, it's not fair to expose a child to this level of stress and anxiety, but clearly she's been failing miserably.

"Hey," Alicia whispers, does her best to smile. "It's okay. It's all going to be fine, you'll see." She takes a deep breath, crosses the threshold into the Avalon Clinic with a distinct feeling of heading into battle.

"Hi. I'm here to see Ethan Hardy, I understand he's a patient here."

The receptionist glances up at her, suspicious. "I take it you don't have an arranged visit, then?"

"No, not exactly. Listen, if you could just tell him we're here…"

"Visits have to be arranged in advance, if I could ask you to call our patient liaison team, I'm sure they'll be happy to arrange something for you. With Dr Hardy's consent, of course. "

"I know that, but if you'd just listen…"

"We have a strict policy, we can't have visitors just turning up and…"

She sighs, frustrated. "Look, we've come down from Holby specially, we just want to…"

"We've brought cake." Small hands prise at the lid of the tin, peer over the desk pleadingly. "Please?"

The receptionist's face softens. "No thank you, sweetie. Are you relatives?"

"I'm Cha…"

"Yes, we're relatives," Alicia interrupts hurriedly. She doesn't want the receptionist to know too much, can't have Ethan find out like this, second hand, Chinese whispers, a rumour passed through so many staff by the time he reaches him that god only knows what he'll be thinking, and that's assuming he's open to the idea of seeing them at all. "I haven't been to visit before, it's been a while…" she trails off. "I didn't know, we lost touch…"

"I shouldn't say this, but it sounds like you aren't the only ones," the receptionist admits quietly. "He's not exactly had a lot of visitors. Look, I shouldn't do this, but I'll send a message through, okay? Just take a seat there. I'll keep you updated."

 **I shouldn't really start another multichap right now, but I've had this idea in my head for a while and I just couldn't let it go. I will still be updating Atoms in the Universe, my other Ethan/Alicia fic, this is just a side project. This chapter is kind of deliberately vague, all will start to be revealed in the next chapter.**

 **Reviews would be hugely, hugely appreciated, this is very different to anything I've written in the last couple of years. Please do let me know what you think, and if you would like me to continue.**

 **-IseultLaBelle**

 **PS- bonus points to anyone who can guess the name! For some reason I can imagine Ethan wanting something very traditional and classic and Alicia being completely new age and alternative with baby names, so I guess it depends who you think came up with the name...**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"Irish name?" the receptionist asks.

"What?' Alicia looks up from filling in her own visitor form, momentarily confused. "Oh, you think, the hair? Me mam's parents came over from Ireland, it's skipped a few generations. But no, it's not Irish. It's spiritual, I guess, if you want to call it anything, I was really into yoga and mindfulness, chakras, doshas, you know, all that stuff, when I was pregnant with her."

Perhaps it's been something of a contradictory phase, given her profession, but Alicia had needed

something to ground her, something to make her see that there might be some sense in the universe, back then.

It hadn't exactly been a great time.

"It's a pretty name. Not a very Ethan name, I'll admit, but a pretty name."

Silently, discretely as she can manage, Alicia winces.

"Sophia thinks it's a stupid name. She says it's made up and common. Except she didn't say common at first, that was just what she said she said when Mammy phoned my teacher to complain and Mrs Davis talked to her about it, what she really said was…"

"Hey, we've talked about this, and I've told you exactly what I think of all the rubbish Sophia comes out with. Girl in her class," Alicia smiles apologetically at the receptionist. "Think mean girls, but aged eight and ten times as brutal. That's my form, so can we…"

"No, not yet. I've already phoned through, someone will let Ethan know he has visitors."

"Okay. Listen, I know this is a big ask, but if you could, you know, not mention our names. It's just…"

"You're his partner, aren't you?" The receptionist smiles sympathetically. "He has photos, you know. In his room. I recognise you."

"He has photos of me?"

"Sure he does. However long it's been, he clearly still cares about you. I knew he had a girlfriend back home, I didn't know he had a daughter."

Alicia sighs, presses the back of her hand against her forehead. "No. No, I don't think he does either. It's not… no, it's not like that," she says hastily, backtracking. "He knew I was pregnant, he was around for about half of it. It's… it's complicated."

She's relying on the fact that this is a specialist clinic, that the receptionist will have seen this scenario a thousand times before.

She'll know how the whole sorry story goes.

Weeks of uncertainty, agonising decisions, what was supposedly meant to be one of the happiest periods of her life ruined by the looming shadow of this cruel disease.

"Anyway," she sighs. "He didn't tell me he was here, he made it pretty clear he didn't want me to go looking for him, and I was pregnant with her, it was a difficult pregnancy, I couldn't have gone off looking for him even if I hadn't known he wanted me to let him go, and then by chance, a friend of someone I work with, he knows Ethan, now, he told me he was here… so, here we are, really." She smiles, forced, sarcastic, determined to shut this conversation down. "How is she?"

"I can't disclose that kind of information. Patient confidentiality."

"Of course. It's alright, I understand. I'm actually a doctor too, Ethan and I met at work."

"She shocks people with an electricity machine. And she puts dislocated things back in and she cuts people open. And she can break your ribs to help you breathe, and she knows all the drugs to inject you with to make you better, and the ones you should ask for if you go to hospital because they're the strong stuff and the ones they give you if they think you're just being a drama queen."

"Emergency medicine," Alicia explains hastily. "I work in emergency medicine."

"She just passed her consultancy exams. She's a paediatric emergency medicine consultant now, it's just a grown-up word that means kids."

"She did? That's amazing, you must be very proud of your mum."

"Mammy made me practice with her. She made me be her patient, she had to do role play tests."

"Wow. Now, that's not a Holby accent, is it?"

"We haven't been back in Holby long," Alicia explains. "We moved up to Newcastle when she started school, I got offered a part-time rotation, it felt like the right thing to do at the time. We moved back last September, I've told her to drop the Geordie accent before it's too late and she's stuck with it for life but she hasn't taken the hint yet, have you?"

"School was better in Newcastle." Narrowed eyes glare up at her.

"She's not loving her new school at the moment. Too many Sophias."

"The world is full of too many Sophias," the receptionist agrees. "I was going to say…"

"I know, we've called in sick to school. It was that or a fine, I wasn't about to pay that on top of the train tickets down here. So, we're going to do educational stuff while we're down here, aren't we? Home educating, or whatever it's called. She likes history. History and medicine, but I'm trying not to encourage that one just yet, I still haven't recovered from the last time she invited herself into resus."

"Well, if she likes history." The receptionist rummages under her desk, pulls out a handful of flyers. "We keep some tourist information here, our patients come here from across the country- not enough specialist units, but you'll know that, of course. It means they get visitors travelling long distances, and our patients can't always cope with long visits."

"Why can't they cope with long visits?"

"Because they get tired, sweetheart," Alicia sighs gently. "We talked about this. Huntington's disease does horrible things to your head, it makes people tired and sometimes it makes them really angry, for no reason. That's why we have to be patient." She turns back to the receptionist. "Sorry."

"It's fine. Anyway, if she likes history, Glastonbury Abby, maybe? They have a children's guide, I think, it's a bit of a walk from here…"

"She's used to walking. Thank you." She sweeps the leaflets into her handbag, wedges them into the Michael Morpurgo King Arthur legends. "We'll take a look later."

The shrill ringing of the phone pulls her back to reality.

"Hello?" The receptionist's face is unreadable, despite Alicia's best efforts. "Right, okay. Yes… okay, great, thank you. I'll send them through." She puts down the phone, turns back to Alicia. "It's good news. Ethan's agreed to visitors. I'll take you up now, do you want to leave your suitcases here?"

"That would be amazing, thank you." Suddenly Alicia's heart is racing; this is it, this is her chance, the moment she's been waiting for every minute of every day of the eight years he's been gone and now it's here, this is her one chance and if she blows it it's gone, she can't blow it, she can't…

They hold hands tightly along the corridors, up in the lift. She's long given up on holding it together in the interests of responsible parenting, she can't hold it together, she can't…

This is where Ethan has lived for the past eight years.

This is where Ethan has been when he should have been home, with them.

It feels like a hospital and at the same time it doesn't, Alicia realises in the lift. It feels like a bizarre combination of hospital and hotel; cold, clinical, and yet there's something faintly welcoming about it, not quite five-star but better than a Premier Inn. She takes in so little- she can't, she's too busy trying to hold herself together- but it reminds her enough of the ED that she doesn't like it, not knowing that this hasn't been Ethan's workplace, but his home.

God, how has he spent eight years here?

"This is him," the receptionist explains; perhaps it's clear from her face that she's about to lose it completely, Alicia wonders. Clearly she isn't trusted to work that out for herself from the 'Ethan Hardy' on the door. Her voice is low. "He knows he's got a visitor, he doesn't know who. I'm going to head back downstairs, but there's plenty of staff around up here, if you need them."

"Thank you." She's sincere, grateful. "Okay, so we're doing resus rules." She turns to her daughter, surveys the corridor, spots the visitors lounge opposite Ethan's door. "Let's go in here. So," she picks her up, parks her on the closest seat facing out into the corridor, takes off her handbag. "Resus rules refresher course. You look after that for me, please. No playing with my makeup, no emptying all my change into the vending machine, no cartwheels, no pirouettes, no climbing on the furniture. Look, you've got a new book, this is the one I was telling you about, it's the King Arthur one. I want to hear all about it later. And if the book's rubbish you can go on my phone, I'm turning the internet off but there's movies on the video app, okay? With headphones, please. And Elephant's in there, you might just have to dig down a bit." Under normal circumstances, she's well past the stage of carrying stuffed animals around with her, but today isn't exactly normal circumstances. "I'll come and get you in a bit, it's just best if I speak to Daddy first, I think. Then we'll come and get you. It won't be long, I promise, but you have to make me a promise too that you aren't going to move from this spot, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good girl. I'm coming right back, I really am."

Alicia can't deny that as she hovers outside the door, trembling, there's a part of her that wants to run right back into the visitors' room and sit there with her.

She can't do this.

She can't, she just can't, and yet she knows she has to.

Softly, tentatively, she knocks.

Nobody else can do this for her.

Alicia remembers feeling like this that first night up in NICU, faced with an unexpectedly early new born with half her organs turned inside out and no Ethan, parents on a cruise around the Mediterranean giving it one last try for what must have been the seventh time over, unreachable, remembers realising that nobody could to it for her.

Once again, this is something she has to do herself.

"Yes?"

Alicia freezes.

His voice is the same.

All these years, so much has changed, and yet just the sound of his voice, that one, simple word, is enough to take her back to a lifetime that sometimes feels so distant she wonders if it was merely a dream.

What does she do now? Does she call out to him from behind the door, give him some advance warning that it's her and with it the opportunity to reject her all over again, or does she just go in there, spring her presence on him and take it from there?

Alicia hasn't got a clue. She should have thought about this, she should have planned ahead…

"Who is it?"

She can't find the words, and so she goes with the second option, spontaneous, caught between that and bottling out and making a run for it, and she can't do that, she can't, she's made it this far.

Nervous, hands shaking, she pushes open the door. "Ethan?"

The room is dark. The curtains are drawn, Alicia realises; the rain has cleared and it's brighter outside now, spring has come to Somerset sooner than it has to Holby, and yet he's in here with the curtains drawn and the lights off, as though he's blocking out the world.

"Alicia?"

She struggles to make him out at first. He's over in the far corner, a shadowy figure, slightly hunched, leaning.

Somehow, through the darkness, she finds his eyes.

There's silence for a moment. There's total silence, both of them searching, so many words to say to one another and so much time to make up for, no clue where to start, how to initiate, whether the person before them is the same one they knew before or gone forever, changed, lost in the gulf of those missing eight years.

He's scared, Alicia realises.

He's scared too.

"How did you find me?" he asks at last.

The medic in Alicia notes, with considerable relief, that his voice lacks the tremor she had feared she might detect.

But what to tell him?

"Charlie," she says simply, at last.

She tries to tell herself it's because there will be time to talk properly later, to explain, but really she knows it's because she's too nervous and overwhelmed and happy and sad all at the same time to properly speak.

He shakes his head, through the shadows. "Alicia, I told you not to look for me, I told you…"

"I know. I know, and I didn't. Not for a long time."

"So why now?" There's desperation in his voice now, more than just a hint of it. "Why now, Alicia? I told you to stay away, I told you I didn't want you here, and I meant that. I don't want you to see how it ends."

"Charlie," Alicia repeats. "I never gave up, Ethan. Don't you think I know how this goes? I've seen enough patients in the end stage, believe me, you're protecting me from nothing. I never gave up, I kept trying, I was just hitting dead ends until Charlie found you. You don't get to make that choice for me, not like this. What if it's what I want? What if I had wanted to do this with you, what if that was my choice? I _loved_ you, Ethan." She can see his expression softening now, the faintest trace of light through the heavy curtains. "God help me, I still love you. I knew what I was signing up for, and I meant it too, okay? I know how this is going to end, I know all that. It doesn't change anything. I still wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, I still want…"

"I can give you _nothing_ , Alicia." There's none of the anger she had feared might begin to creep into his voice somewhere along the line, no sign of this god-awful disease taking control. "Do you get that? Nothing. I am going to wither away and it's going to be slow and it's going to be agonising, I have nothing to give you. I can't give you a child without a death sentence, I can't give you a family and I can't give you a future, I go and you'll have nothing. Nothing but years of your life wasted giving all your soul and your energy and the best years of your life to a ticking time bomb. That's why. I don't want you to choose that for my sake, I don't want you to… I can't…"

"Ethan," Alicia pleads gently. "Ethan, please, listen…"

She trails off as the door creaks open.

She thinks it's one of the nurses at first. She thinks it's one of the nurses and so she cuts off because this moment is private, because she knows Ethan, can't believe he's changed so much despite all this time, she knows he won't take kindly to the staff listening in on this, it's not like he can leave at the end of the day, he's stuck here, trapped…

"Mammy? Mammy, I'm really sorry, I was thirsty and I didn't realise your water was the sparkly kind and I opened it too fast and it exploded in your handbag and now your cigarettes are all soggy."

Alicia almost doesn't dare to turn around at first, hopes she's imagining it.

A small figure stands in the doorway, illuminated by the light coming in from the corridor.

Perhaps, in years to come, she'll laugh about this. Her not-quite-eight-year-old, unmistakably her miniature, too-big handbag balanced on her small shoulder, mercifully Alicia's phone still in the outside pocket, spared of drowning. Book under one arm, cake tin gripped tightly in her hands with the stuffed toy elephant perched on top beside a completely sodden box of cigarettes (and the worst of it is she still hardly ever smokes the damned things, they're an emergency bad day pick me up and Ethan will remember that but for god's sake, now he's going to think she's properly addicted), eyes wide, guilty as charged.

The timing, Alicia considers, could not possibly have been worse.

She doesn't have time to assess the situation, implement the kind of damage control only a parent knows how, before Ethan and his daughter lock eyes across the room, and it's all too late.

"No." There's an almost childlike-panic and denial to Ethan's voice at first, and then he turns, then it's like an eruption, an explosion, out of control, uncontainable. "No, no, no, no, NO! You promised, Alicia! You agreed, you promised! NO! How could you be so fucking stupid, Alicia, we agreed, WE AGREED…"

The cake tin clatters to the floor.

"She's not, Ethan!" Shouting back is the worst thing she can do, Alicia knows that rationally, but small hands grip her waist, body pressed up against her in a way she hasn't done when she's anxious around strangers since she was about four years old and she has to do something, this has to stop, she can't…

She grabs her, instinctive, clutches her to her chest, clings on. "I had her tested. You left, remember? You left, you didn't know, you'd just convinced yourself she was going to be positive. She's totally Huntington's free, Ethan. She's healthy. She's _fine_. But you wouldn't know that, because you convinced yourself 50/50 odds were a death sentence and you left me to pick up the pieces!"

The silence is deafening.

"I… Alicia, I…" Ethan stammers. "I didn't, I thought… I…"

She has to think.

If it were just about Ethan, it would be a no brainer. She would stay. She would wait for him to calm down, she would try again.

But it isn't just about him anymore. It hasn't been for eight years, and she doesn't care how badly Ethan realises he's screwed up just no, not when her daughter is shaking in her arms.

"We're going," she says firmly. "We're going, now. We'll start this over when you've cooled off."

She turns for the door, cold, purposeful.

"You forgot the cake tin."

"No, I didn't. Your daughter made you that, you're going to bloody eat it, I think that's the least you can do. We'll be back for it tomorrow."

"Alicia, I dont..."

She's gone before he has the chance to scream at her for her cold abrasiveness.

He doesn't get to win round one.

 **I am** **honestly** **so overwhelmed by your wonderful reviews of chapter 1. Thank** **you so, so much, you are fantastic. I was really unsure about posting this story, and you guys have made me so glad I did. And as a side note, I had no idea what was going to happen in last night's episode when I started writing this, it's a total coincidence- although I did manage to get this chapter finished so quickly partly because the reviews were so lovely, and partly because that episode made such good writing inspiration!**

 **Reviews would be amazing, your feedback means the world and honestly helps me improve my writing.**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	3. Chapter 3

**So there was actually an enormous hint in the last chapter, I don't know if anyone got it...**

 **Chapter 3**

"Can you see it? Look, that's the tor, it's like a tall rocky bit on the top of the hill, you see? It's just up there, up the steps. I'll race you, you ready?"

They tear off up the steps together. Alicia had started taking her running with her when she was what the jobs' worth health visitor had told her disapprovingly was far too young, but she had already fallen out with the health visitor too many times to count and it was the age-old dilemma of single parenthood: give up all the things she had done before or find a way of taking her plus one along with her.

So far, Alicia has encountered no evidence whatsoever that she has scarred her for life irreversibly. In fact, if the health visitor is ever unfortunate enough to encounter her in the ED, she plans to show her photos of every single cold, wet, muddy school cross country race, one by one, minute detail, overly proud parent of much adored only child style.

They pause at the top of the steps, panting, momentarily captivated by the view back down the hilltop.

"Wow, okay, I did not know you could run that fast. You'll be leaving me behind soon."

She giggles, stares curiously over at the old stone tower at the very top. "What's that man doing?"

"The man standing in the entrance?" It's narrow, a narrow stone arch in way of a door, the tower itself tall, thin, the epitome of early Christian buildings.

Alicia has done a _lot_ of National Trust visits in the last eight years, and if someone had told her before all this that she would be purchasing a membership card in her late twenties, she probably would have hit them.

As it's turned out, having a small child to entertain has given her a new-found appreciation for the open air, and said small child has developed a thing for anything 'old.'

"I think it's some kind of pagan, spiritual thing. Soul cleansing or something."

"Is that why he's standing like this?" She mimics, stretches out her arms, closes her eyes, still, about as still as Alicia has seen her all year, never mind all afternoon.

"I think so. This is kind of like an island, according to the guidebook, you see? It's all marshland down there, I guess it must have felt a bit like an island hundreds of years ago. Some people who are really into this stuff think this was the Isle of Avalon, is that in your book?"

"Not yet."

"I think it might be, later on. Some people think this was where King Arthur and the Holy Grail were buried, so to them, it's special."

"Like, historians?"

"No, like nut jobs. Except don't tell him I said that, okay? I think there's meant to be some kind of spiritual energy up there you can harness, he probably thinks he's doing that. What spiritual energy has to do with King Arthur though, I really don't know, you can tell me that when you finish your book."

"When you were in the toilet, Daddy's receptionist said there's a secret fairy cave near here. It's hidden, but every few centuries they take a child to join their fairy kingdom. She said it's just an old Celtic story, but I should probably stay with you anyway, just to be safe."

"She did? Well, I think that's very sensible of her. I like her."

I do, too. Her name's Kerry. She left her name badge at home today, she said she's sorry."

"This was when I was in the toilet too, was it?" She had left the poor unsuspecting receptionist on babysitting duty the minute they had made it back down to the visitors' entrance, run to the toilets and sobbed, too angry and heartbroken and guilty and sad and so many things she still can't put into words to stop and ask if it would be alright.

She hopes Ethan shares the cake.

"Yes, we were talking for a while. She said she's seen first visits go worse than that."

"Oh, she has? Well, I guess that makes me feel better."

"Are we really going to see Daddy again tomorrow?"

Alicia sighs. "You don't have to if you don't want to. I am, but I'm not going to make you. I know he was angry today, sweetheart, I know it wasn't nice, but it would have been a huge shock for him, when he left he didn't think… he didn't think you were going to… survive," she says carefully, tentatively. "It would have been a lot to take in, and Huntington's disease does horrible things to your brain, it can make you feel really angry…"

"No, I want to. I don't think he was angry. I think he was just sad."

"You know what? I think that's a really grown up thing to say." She glances back up at the tower on the tor. "You know what else? That man's gone. Do you want to go and cleanse your soul?"

Alicia peers up the tower, frowns. "So this is St Michael's, okay? Built by monks in the fourteenth century… I think. The guidebook's kind of confusing, there have been Christians living here since the Anglo-Saxon times…"

"That's King Arthur's time."

"If you say so, you're the expert. I'm more interested in the fact that it's got no roof. They must have got soaked up here, can you imagine?"

"Mammy? So, do you think if I stand here long enough it will purify my dosha energy or something?"

"No, I don't, but if it makes people feel better I can't see there's any harm in it."

"Then I guess I don't, either."

Alicia watches her position herself in the archway, stretches out her arms, tilts back her head.

"Your hair needs cutting."

"Doesn't."

"Yes, it does. You look like a Celtic warrior princess. Stay with me, yeah, or Kerry's Celtic fairies really are going to take you off to their fairy cave, they'll think you _are_ one of them."

"Hey, you're distracting me, I'm trying to purify my dosha energy."

"And is it working?"

"No, it's not, because you keep laughing at me."

"Okay, okay, distractions over. Tell me when you're reborn," Alicia plays along. She sits down on the bench against the stonework, below the national trust information board, makes a brief attempt to read through it before she decides it's only the guidebook regurgitated anyway, pulls her phone out her pocket.

Elle. _Starting to get a bit worried by lack of updates. Hope everything's okay x_

Bea. _Hey, how's it going? Thinking of you. Hugs to you and C._

She fires off her replies, reports back that it could have gone better, that they've left Ethan to digest the fact that he has a (Huntington's-free) daughter and calm down from his angry outburst and they're trying again tomorrow.

She's not entirely convinced she manages to pull off the light and breezy tone she desperately wants to convey.

"I take it your soul is cleansed, then?"

She frowns, pensive. "How would I know?"

"I have absolutely no idea. Come on, shall we go and get dinner? We can do the walk down into Glastonbury another day."

She holds Alicia's hand on the way back down from the tor, suddenly pensive, quiet.

She's had a bad day, Alicia reasons. She's had a hell of a bad day by anyone's standards, let alone a child's.

"You tired?" she asks. "Do you want to just get a pizza and crash at the hotel? I think there's a takeaway place in the village that does…"

She shakes her head. "Mammy?"

"Yeah?"

Her expression is somewhere between guilt and fear. "I'm not tired."

"Okay?"

"I think I left Elephant in Daddy's room."

Alicia groans. "How did you…?"

"I dropped her. I couldn't carry everything so I put her on the cake tin, and then I dropped the tin…"

Oh shit, Alicia realises, she can visualise it. She can see it so clearly in her head, she's right, she had it, she had the bloody elephant on the cake tin and it would have gone flying into the corner of the room, they wouldn't have seen it because Ethan had all the daylight blocked out like a vampire, shit…

"Okay," she says, impressing even herself with the calm she somehow manages to inject into her tone, because she's not calm, she's so far from it. "Okay, well we're just going to have to go back and get her then, aren't we?"

They don't bother with the visitors' entrance. It's early evening now, visiting hours will be over, and Alicia doesn't fancy their chances reasoning with the staff on duty. They sneak in through the staff gate and round the back of the building instead, Alicia with her NHS ID card in hand, just in case. But it's quiet, evening shift transfer clearly already over, and they slip through, unnoticed, Alicia scanning the building.

"Okay. Okay, let's think about this rationally. So it was the third floor, end of the corridor…" she grips her daughter's hand, leads her around to the fire escape at the far end of the building. "Okay. So I reckon, if we go up this one…"

"Mammy…"

"Hey, come on, it's fine, sweetheart. It's totally fine. Worst they're going to do is tell us no Romeo and Juliet balcony moments, okay? Just trust me. Okay… yep, only one with the curtains drawn, that's got to be his."

The window is ever so slightly open, locked on the hatch.

"Stay here, don't move, hold my hand," Alicia instructs. "Ethan? Ethan? It's me, it's Alicia!"

No response.

"Ethan, I know you can hear me. We're not staying, I promise. This isn't some weird romantic gesture. Look, I need to ask a favour. Did we leave an elephant up there, before? Not a real one, obviously." She flushes, embarrassed; she's making a right mess of operation elephant rescue. "Stuffed animal, about 12 inches tall, grey, slightly in need of an adventure in the washing machine…"

"Indian elephant."

"… Right, thank you… Indian elephant, Ethan. She means it has smaller ears, we know far too much about elephants." Alicia sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose, tries to think, because god knows she hasn't thought this through one bit. "We think we left it in your room earlier, and we really need it back. Ethan?"

She knows he's in there; it's faint, but there's a shadow, a faint shadow from the corner of the room she remembers he was in before.

She knows he's in there, but still there's no response.

"Please, Ethan. Look, if you don't have it, that's fine, just let me know, but she definitely had it when she came in earlier and she doesn't think she picked it up when she left, and I don't either, so… If you could just have a look for it, please? Probably on the floor somewhere? You might have missed it, it can kind of blend in. Or get someone in to rescue it off the floor if you can't, you know…" God, she's making this worse. "I know we could just get it tomorrow morning, I know it's not the end of the world and everything, but it kind of is when you're seven. She's had it since she was born, she's never slept without it. That's honestly not a lie, we left it in a hotel room in London last year, they put it in the post for her but my god that night without her elephant was the worst, I'm not kidding, she really did not sleep. So I am begging you, Ethan, for the sake of my sanity, if it's in there. You can pass it through the window, we don't have to come in."

She's silent for a moment. They stand in silence, waiting; they need to give him a moment, Alicia reasons, he needs time to think, to look, to remember where he's put it, because he has it in there, he must do…

This might well be the Huntington's, of course, he might be being deliberately bloody awkward, deciding whether or not he's going to hand it over, but Alicia doesn't want to think like that.

She just can't face the possibility that she might now have to think of Ethan like that.

Still nothing.

"Come on, Ethan," Alicia pleads. "She's seven. She's _seven_ , she's been dragged halfway across the country and she's sleeping in a strange bed in a strange room tonight. She's slept with that thing since she was born, are you really going to keep it from her just because you're angry with me? She's not me, Ethan. She's not me, she's not an extension of me, be angry at me for coming here all you like but you do _not_ get to take it out on her."

There's a sudden flurry of activity from the other side of the curtain, and Alicia holds her breath.

The window opens, just a crack further, the curtain still in position, and then a hand reaches through, pushes something small and fluffy and just a little grubby into view.

"Is this yours?" His face is barely visible, just a thin slither through the gap in the curtain.

His voice is softer than earlier, calmer, and it's perfectly clear to Alicia he isn't talking to her.

But her daughter is frozen, still clutching her hand, and so she nudges her forward gently, hands on her shoulders, strokes her hair.

She's willing her to do this, willing her with every atom of her being.

Small hands approach the window, but it's just out of reach, slightly above her height (the poor child was never exactly going to be blessed in that department, Alicia reasons, genetics were so not on her side on that one) and so Alicia promptly lifts her up, holds her tight.

She can't risk him changing his mind.

For all she knows of the progression of his condition, that could still be a very real possibility.

Alicia sits her on the window sill, holds onto her, wary, as she reaches out for the stuffed elephant. "Thank you," she says quietly, shyly.

She's so painfully uncertain of him. Ethan can't possibly fail to notice that.

"You're welcome. Does she… she? Does she have a name?"

"Elephant."

"Oh, of course, of course it is. That's a very sensible name."

They've locked eye contact now, and it occurs to Alicia that in another lifetime, this moment is so different. They're in a delivery room, Ethan's the first to hold her, the first face she sees, they have this moment when she's tiny, new born, cuddles into his chest and she knows him, she knows him as a father.

Instead, she's looking into the eyes of a stranger, and no part of Alicia expects it to break her heart quite like it does.

"My name's Ethan," he says hesitantly. He's as nervous as she is, Alicia realises. He's trying so hard not to look at her, looks right at her daughter on the window sill and ignores Alicia crouched behind her, holding her up, just in case, protective, a mother tiger guarding her cub.

He never was great with kids, back at the ED. She was always the one who knew how to talk to kids, it was partly why she went down the paediatrics emergency medicine specialism route in the end.

Ethan, on the other hand, was always a different story, always clammed up around them, told her they made him nervous whenever she teased him about it.

It was never exactly going to be any better in these circumstances.

If anything, it's ten times worse.

"Hi, Ethan."

If they're more comfortable with first name terms for now, Alicia can totally live with that.

"Hi." He smiles now; it's sad, mournful, partly obscured by the curtain, but it's there. "I… I don't know yours. I'm sorry."

She clams up, looks back to Alicia, unsure.

"Hey, you're never normally this shy, are you? It's okay," she whispers. "It's okay, it's okay. I promise it's okay."

She turns back to him, still gripping Alicia's hand tightly, the elephant in the other. Ethan holds its other back leg as though it's some kind of connection between them, once-removed, but there, all they're comfortable with just now.

His reassuring smile is just as endearing as she remembers.

"Chakra." Her voice is just a whisper, unsure, wobbles a little, but she manages it.

"Hmm?" Finally, he glances over her to Alicia, eyes pleading for help, and despite everything, she smiles.

"She's telling you her name, Ethan. Albeit very quietly. You weren't here," she reminds him warningly, because Kerry the receptionist was probably right, as was Mrs Beauchamp, eyebrow raised over the registry forms in that faintly disapproving holier-than-thou way only Mrs Beauchamp can. "Go on, sweetheart, can you say it louder this time?"

"Chakra."

"Chakra." He's trying it out, she suspects, and it slips off his tongue with less reservations than Alicia had feared.

Either that, or she's gone so Geordie in her nervousness he wants to be sure he understood her.

Perhaps they're right, perhaps it's not very Ethan, but they never got around to discussing names, and then he wasn't there.

Alicia had decided he didn't get a say.

"Hi, Chakra." He smiles, less unsure this time. "That's… that's pretty."

"Really?"

"Really. It's very… very your mum. But you'll know that already, won't you? Probably better than I do, nowadays."

He's gone in too adult now, and she turns back to Alicia, unsure again.

"Are you going to tell him your middle name?" Alicia prompts her.

She didn't go completely off-piste, after all.

She turns back to Ethan, glancing between the two of them now, a little conflicted. "Callie."

He stops, freezes, pulls the curtain back just a little. "Callie? Chakra Callie?"

She nods, smiles at him shyly.

"That's…" he's quiet for a moment, thoughtful. "Your mum is brilliant, isn't she?"

"I think so."

"I think so too. So… so your birthday must be June, right?"

"No. It's April 16th."

"She was premature," Alicia explains. "She was a few weeks premature, but she's absolutely fine now. Listen, we have to go. We need to go and get dinner, or it'll be way past her bedtime by the time we get back to the hotel. But we'll come tomorrow morning, yeah? If that's okay with you? Through the door this time."

Ethan smiles. "I'd like that."

"We'll be back, then. Come on." She tugs on her daughter's hand. "What do you say?"

"Thank you, Ethan."

"You're welcome. Bye, Chakra. I'll… I'll see you tomorrow."

 **Thank you again to my wonderful reviewers. I've written for a lot of fandoms, but you guys are honestly the most amazingly supportive group of reviewers I've ever had, and I'm so glad you're enjoying my writing, and Ethan's behaviour comes across understandable given the circumstances. And it's so nice to know that the dialogue feels natural- panicpeachpit, I completely agree with you, kids are so difficult to write!**

 **Also, to those of you who also read my other casualty fic Atoms in the Universe, I promise an update will be with you by the end of the week. I've actually been working on both stories pretty equally, I just seem to finish chapters much faster for this one!**

 **As ever, please do review, your feedback is fantastic.**

 **-IseultLaBelle**

 **PS. if anyone has any suggestions for father-daughter bonding activities, please do let me know in the reviews/by PM. Ethan has a LOT of catching up to do...**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

She knocks apprehensively, the next morning.

It felt like something of a turning point, that moment on the fire escape last night, and yet there's no guarantee with Huntington's, especially Huntington's they know so little about the progression of, and Alicia doesn't want to take any chances.

He could turn again. The mood swings; it's so hard to know, yesterday morning could have been the disease talking or it could have been just the shock of it all, she really doesn't know. There's no way she can possibly know, not just yet, not until she knows the situation medically, and it's too soon to press for those details, far, far too soon.

They're going to have to continue taking this as it comes, at least for today.

"Alicia?"

There's none of the aggressive numbness in his tone she had feared there might be as he calls out to her, and so, smiling, still a little nervous, she pushes open the door.

"Hi." She fidgets awkwardly, still so painfully aware of the gulf of time between them. "I said I'd come back, didn't I?"

It's that same, dark cave it was yesterday in his room, the curtains drawn, lights off, daylight struggling to break in through the crack in the curtains.

She can just about make him out in that same corner, hiding away, retreated.

"Where's…?"

"She's downstairs, she's with Kerry the receptionist. They're bonding over local folktales and fairy stories and ranking them according to plausibility, it's best not to ask. Except I don't think she really has a clue what that means, she just thinks she does. Kerry's going to bring her up in a bit. I thought we should have some time to talk first."

"I see. I thought…" He trails off, hesitant; it's so hard to read him in the darkness. "I thought perhaps, after yesterday, she might not…"

"Hey, you won't get rid of her that easily." She tries her hardest to make her tone light, carefree. "I mean, you definitely redeemed yourself with her elephant, but she was already pretty adamant she was coming back today, so…"

"She looks so much like you."

"Yeah, I get that a lot. I think she looks more like my nana, though. I should have brought you her childhood photos, it's a bit uncanny. I mean, I look a lot like her, but Chakra has her hair and everything."

"She's beautiful, Alicia."

"Well, she's half you too, you know."

"But she looks nothing like me, she's a mini you. And she hasn't… you know. Thank goodness."

"Yeah, but she basically _is_ you, personality wise. Or how I imagine you as a kid, anyway. We spent most of yesterday afternoon hiking up Glastonbury Tor with her quizzing me about what life was like in Anglo-Saxon times. She wants to know everything about everything, ancient history's her thing at the moment. And she's _seven_. I don't think I had any real concept of history and time when I was seven. Certainly not like she does, anyway. And I think she's read more books since she started school than I've read in my entire life. Voluntarily."

"You know, Cal was always convinced my terrible eyesight was the result of too many late-night reading sessions under the covers with one of those superhero projection torches."

"See? I knew she'd got it from you, there was no way it was anything in my DNA."

"Alicia." There's so much pain in his voice now, so much anguish. "I didn't know, I swear, I didn't…"

"Would it have made a difference if you had?" she asks, numb.

They both know the answer to that question, and it's not pleasant to accept.

"I was just so angry, Alicia." His voice breaks. "I knew it was coming, I wasn't in denial, I don't think, I'd accepted it. But when it started… I couldn't, when it started, I just couldn't… I was so angry, I was just so angry, I thought I'd prepared myself for the onset but I hadn't, I hadn't expected it to be so soon, I guess, I don't know. And that just made it all worse, I knew the anger could be a symptom, you know how bad it can get with this… I was so scared I was going to hurt you, I would never have forgiven myself, Alicia, never. I couldn't find the words to tell you; I tried, I really did. If you hadn't told me you were pregnant… I don't know, I really don't know when I would have told you."

"I wish you had," she whispers. She crosses the room through the darkness, delicately, searching for him, somehow no closer than she's been to him at any point in these last eight years. "You could have told me, Ethan, I wish you'd told me when you first got the diagnosis…"

"What, so you could make it better?" Ethan snaps, and Alicia sighs.

"No. So I could have supported you. So you might have felt you could tell me when you started noticing symptoms. But… but more than anything, Ethan, I wish you'd told me because perhaps if we'd had time to talk about it before it was happening, perhaps you might have felt we could have done this together."

"No. No, we couldn't." His tone is adamant, uncompromising. "We couldn't, Alicia. I couldn't have done that to you. You'd already been through so much, it had barely been a year since Eddie, and then when you told me… I couldn't. I couldn't be that selfish. You deserve better than I can give you, Alicia, you did then and you still do now. You deserve someone who'll look after you, not someone you'll have to watch die slowly and aggressively, not like this. I couldn't even guarantee I wasn't going to turn into an abusive monster, I couldn't risk taking it all out on you, you know how awful Huntington's aggressive behaviour can be. And then you told me you were pregnant and you were so happy, I saw what telling you did to you, and I thought… I couldn't see it rationally, I was so sure, I was completely convinced she was positive, I could only see the bad in everything after it set in. I was convinced she was positive, I didn't think I even needed the test results to know that, I knew having to abort was going to destroy you and I knew miscarrying after the test was going to be just as awful, and I'd have done that to you either way, Alicia, it would have been all my fault, I should have been more careful, I should never have risked getting you pregnant."

"Ethan…"

"No, no listen, please. You deserve an explanation. It just felt like it was all my fault, it felt as if whatever I did I was going to cause you so much pain, I thought… I thought it would be better if I just left, I knew you'd be upset but I though at least you'd be able to move on with your life that way, I didn't… I couldn't, I just couldn't see that it was possible she wouldn't have it, I thought it was inevitable that I'd contaminated her, I never imagined I was leaving you alone with a child…"

It takes Alicia a moment to process the sounds that follow him trailing off, to fully take it in.

She doesn't think she's ever seen him cry like this, not even that awful night she'd told him she was pregnant, and the blissfully happy moment she had imagined had gone so horribly wrong.

There's nothing she can say to make it better. She can't tell him that it's okay, because it's anything but, because he left her and he left their daughter and whatever his reasoning, it can't ever take the pain away.

And yet at the same time, a part of her does understand. She doesn't like it, can't accept it, but she understands.

She suspects the Huntington's has been controlling his behaviour for far, far longer than any aggressive symptoms he might now possess have been in evidence.

"Why don't you open the curtains?" Alicia suggests gently. "We can't talk properly like this, I can hardly see you."

"No, no, I don't want you to see me like this…"

"Oh, come on, Ethan, you had the curtains drawn and the lights out before you knew it was me yesterday, I know you didn't do it for my benefit. I'm not going to leave, if that's what you're worried about. I don't care how bad it is, I'm going nowhere."

Nothing. She imagines him pouting at her in the gloom, a sullen child.

"You do realise there is no way Chakra is going to go along with sitting in here in the dark, right? Or not without trying to turn it into a game, anyway. So if you'd rather look at her colouring than scrabble around on the floor with her, daylight probably isn't a bad idea."

She doesn't think he's going to oblige at first. She's half afraid that he's going to snap again, that he'll lose it with her like yesterday and that will be it, she'll have blown it for today already, be left with no choice but to abort this latest attempt and come back tomorrow, risk them becoming locked in a vicious cycle of visits lasting only a few minutes, getting nowhere, stalemate.

But he shifts in the darkness, silent, slow, and then he's pulling at the curtains, hesitant, and slowly, dull, March sun fills the room.

He can't look at her, Alicia realises. It's as though he can't bring himself to meet her gaze, fearing her reaction, eyes fixed firmly to the floor.

He stands in the corner by the window, slightly hunched, leaning heavily on a walking aid. He's thinner than she remembers, frail, and yet he's Ethan, still Ethan, even after all this time.

He might be ashamed to be relying on a walking aid in front of her, but all Alicia can think is that after eight years of Huntington's progression, it could be so, so much worse.

"Ethan," Alicia says gently. "Ethan, it's okay."

She crosses the room towards him slowly, cautious. There's another chair beside the one she assumes must be his; she lowers herself into it, waits for him to copy her.

They stare at each other for a moment, searching each other's faces.

"You haven't changed," Ethan says at last.

There's something in his tone Alicia can't quite place.

"Nor have you."

He raises his eyebrow, thoroughly unconvinced.

"Well, apart from you look like you haven't seen the sun in eight years," she teases. "You're still you, Ethan. I don't give a damn about the rest of it."

He shakes his head, adamant. "Alicia, you're not thinking straight…"

"Ethan. Listen." She lays her hand over his; thankfully tremor-free. Let's just take this one step at a time, okay?"

He falls silent, closes his eyes wearily. There's so much defeat in him now; it's written all over his face, undeniable.

It's as though he's given up, as though he's just waiting.

She doesn't want to think about what part of it all he's waiting for.

"Eight years," Ethan says at last, breaking the silence. "Where do we even start?"

There are so many questions Alicia wants to pose to him in that moment. She wants to ask him how bad it is, wants to ask him how he's coping, how he's been spending his days for the last eight years because besides the bookcase overflowing with medical journals, his surroundings aren't giving her much of an idea. Selfishly, she wants to ask him how he could do this to her, how he could get it all so wrong, be so blind to the fact that she loves him, that if this is how it has to end for him it's going to break her heart but she would rather that than any happily ever after she might have without him.

So many questions, and none of them are going to do either of them any good.

Not yet.

"You said… yesterday…" he trails off. "Sorry. I realise I gave up my right to know these things a long time ago…"

She shakes her head, reassures him. "No, no, it's okay. Although if you're going to ask if there's anyone else, the answer is no, there never has been. And not just because I haven't exactly had the time, either."

"No. No, no, it's not that." He brushes it aside, although Alicia is certain there's a faint trace of a smile in his features, a lightness about him that wasn't there before. "Her… Chakra… (he's _so_ not convinced, Alicia realises; she can only hope her tastes will grow on him) her birthday's in April…"

She sighs. "Ah, okay. That." She had hoped he would leave that one a little longer, that she wouldn't have to upset him with it all so soon.

"Thirty-two weeks?"

"You remember?"

"Of course I do. So…" He closes his eyes for a moment, awkward, as though he's struggling to decide how to pose this particular question. "What…"

"Ethan…" She grips his hand a little tighter. "You were sort of right about the anomaly test. Well, we both were, really. I was right that she was negative, you were right that something was wrong." She pauses; there's no easy way to do this, no way of minimising the damage. "Exomphalos. Minor, thank god, only needed primary repair. It shouldn't have been early delivery, not really, but add in oligohydramnios and a placental abruption and…"

He pales. "Oh, Alicia…"

She shrugs. "She's fine now, really, more or less. It could have been so much worse."

"More or less?" he worries.

"Some possible gastro issues. It's minor, she's fine. There's no reason to worry about her, Ethan. She's honestly fine."

The truth, of course, is that she's been doing all the worrying for the both of them for eight years now.

"I don't know how to talk to her," Ethan confesses. I've never had a clue with kids, I can't…"

"Hey, you didn't manage too badly yesterday."

"Listen, about last night, I wasn't angry at you. I was wrong, I shouldn't have shouted at you like that, I should have trusted you, and I certainly shouldn't have shouted in front of Chakra. I'm sorry. But I wasn't angry at you, I just… I was scared, I know that sounds ridiculous but I just have no idea how… she's a tiny human, she's so much more complicated than an adult, it's like a whole code language I don't understand…"

Alicia tries so hard not to laugh, but it's too much to hold in. "You were scared of talking to your own seven-year-old?"

"But she's not mine, is she? No, not like that, I don't mean it like that," Ethan covers hastily. "I know she's mine, Alicia, no part of me doubts that. But she's _yours_. I'm a stranger to her, a stranger with a horrible illness and no idea how to talk to kids, I don't know what she likes, I don't know what makes her laugh, I don't know how to comfort her when she's sad, I don't… You're the one who's been there. I don't know any of those things, I don't know how…"

"No," Alicia says firmly, cutting him off. "No, you don't. But that doesn't mean you can't learn." She stands, purposeful, quickly, subtly, scans the room for any sign of a wheelchair. "Shall we go and get her? Poor Kerry the receptionist probably can't wait to hand her back, once you get her going she doesn't stop talking."

He stares at her, as though it's the most ridiculous suggestion in the world.

"I'll wait here, you go."

"Hey, come on, you might as well come. Do you need anything to… you know? I can help, Ethan, you can ask me to…"

"Alicia. Alicia, I'm staying here."

Alicia decides this is not the moment to ask him if his sudden abrasiveness is an attempt to conceal the fact that he's not up to the walk down to reception.

"Sure, I'll go get her. Back in a minute, okay?"

As she waits for the lift, she hopes the worry in her voice was detectable to only her.

 **A few things to say at the end of this one: firstly, as ever, thank you so, so much to my wonderful reviewers, you guys are the best. Glad nobody hated the name! For some reason I just could not imagine Alicia giving her child a 'normal' name. Chakra's name was actually inspired by the mandala wall art in Alicia's bedroom and what looked like an oil diffuser in I think episode 37 of the last series. Alicia has struck me as a character with a potentially unexpected spiritual side for a while now, so I saw that and I ran with it. Exomphalos is also called Omphalocele, it's basically a condition that means a baby's organs develop in a sac outside the body. It's usually corrected with surgery soon after birth.**

 **20BlueRoses- that's exactly what I was aiming for with Chakra liking 'old' things, I'm so glad you noticed it.**

 **Panicpeachpit, I have heard nothing positive about health visitors either! The Avalon theme kind of evolved when I was planning this, it mostly started out as a good location for Ethan's clinic and with lots of potential for Alicia/Chakra scenes- Glastonbury is really, really pretty and totally worth a visit. But it occurred to me after I started writing this that actually, there are a lot of similarities between the stories** **of Avalon and Ethan and Alicia's storylines on Casualty. The biggest one is probably the Ethan-Alicia-Cal love triangle and Lancelot's love for King Arthur's wife Guinevere. I promise the Avalon theme is going to remain minor in this, but it is interesting.**

 **Also, I have a two hour flight tomorrow, I will be taking my laptop and I will be using that time to write. Would you guys prefer I work on Finding Avalon, or Atoms in the Universe? And any requests you would like me to try to work into either one of those? Let me know in the reviews. I will be flying at 1pm tomorrow UK time, so I will go with the majority then.**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Stupidly, she hadn't counted on Chakra hiding behind her the moment she crossed the threshold into Ethan's room.

She should have predicted it. She believed what she wanted to believe, Alicia realises now. Desperately, she wanted to believe that they had turned a corner last night, that her daughter- their daughter- would head in to see Ethan happily, confidently, that they would pick up exactly where they had left off last night, be interacting with each other as naturally as they would have had Ethan known her all her life by the time they left for the day.

Idealistic, unrealistic, _stupid_ , Alicia realises now, but she had wanted to believe it so badly, she had lost all sight of that.

She's never usually this shy; that's the part of it all that threatens to break Alicia's heart. Her daughter has spent an awful lot of time in the company of adults, is used to being brought into the ED and handed over to whoever happens to be going spare when Alicia is called in on an emergency shift, used to being an only child, to having all of the adult attention going for herself.

She's used to warming to people quickly; she's inherited that from her mother, one of the few personality traits from Alicia's side of the gene pool she managed to capture.

And yet she's so anxious around him, she can't warm to her own father.

Alicia doesn't know how to deal with that.

And the worst of it is, she can see so painfully clearly that it's breaking Ethan's heart too.

He just looks so utterly lost. The expression in his eyes is helpless, hurt, and he lurks back almost as though he's afraid, no idea how to approach her, how to break the ice. He's pulled himself to a standing position, leaning against the arm of his chair in the corner by the window, as though he's hoping his daughter won't notice, walking aid most likely hidden behind the now-pulled curtains, Alicia reasons.

She's so Ethan, in that moment. She's so undeniably Ethan, because this is Ethan all over, shy, socially anxious, paralysed by fear, afraid of throwing away the very thing he wants the most because he's too terrified to try, and of course it falls to her to break them from their unintentional stalemate.

"Oh, come on, you two are both as bad as each other!" She fights to keep her tone light-hearted, but her voice wobbles, because the truth of it all is she's desperately struggling with this too. "You've already done this bit, for goodness sake! Chakra, Ethan; Ethan, Chakra. Chak, come on, are you going to say hi to Ethan properly?"

"Hi again, Chakra." Ethan does his best to beam at her, although Alicia sees right through his façade, doesn't doubt that Chakra does too. "I liked your cake."

It's only as he gestures to the cake tin, neatly placed on the table across the room, that Alicia realises it's the same one she brought along to her first shift at the ED, all those years ago.

'Thank you." She smiles, shy, steps forward slightly, still a little unsure.

"Banana avocado chocolate brownies?"

Chakra just nods, peers at him curiously.

"Mummy's still on her animal welfare, save the planet and transform your health crusade then?"

"What does that mean?"

"He's making fun of me, Chak, ignore him."

"Your mum, Chakra, had an accident a few months before we got together. And…"

"What kind of accident?"

"Oh… well, that's your mum's story to tell, really- a road accident, I guess. But anyway, afterwards, she finally did something she'd been threatening to do for months, she announced she was going vegan. She told me at the time the accident had made her see the world in a whole new light, kind of like an epiphany, I guess- do you know what that means?"

"No."

"Oh, okay." He's learning, Alicia notes, slowly, he's learning that he's going to have to simplify his language if he wants her to understand a word he's saying. "Sorry. It means… a sudden realisation, I guess. She told me she'd had an epiphany after the accident, but I think really, she just enjoyed watching me run around the hospital like a headless chicken- or not chicken, headless carrot, or something- trying to persuade the kitchen staff to cook something she would agree to eat."

Chakra giggles.

"So after that, I would go over to hers after work and she would cook, and I would tell her making cake with avocados and chickpeas and strange things like that was just wrong on so many levels. But I always secretly liked these ones. Although," he pauses for a moment, catches her gaze. "I think yours are better."

"Thank you."

She's still painfully shy, but she's getting there.

"The garden's pretty."

"Do you think so?" Ethan turns, slowly, gingerly, Chakra moving to look out of the window. "I probably don't appreciate it as much as I should."

"Because you always have the curtains shut?"

"Usually. I opened the curtains just for you, so we don't have to sit in here in the dark."

"Why do you usually have them shut?"

"Chakra," Alicia warns. "Too many questions." She doesn't dare risk pushing Ethan to breaking point again, Huntington's-induced or otherwise, not when they've made it this far. "Look, you and Ethan need something to do together, don't you?" She dumps her handbag in the corner of the room, surveys with the bag of Chakra's assorted paraphernalia, finally settling on the table in front of Ethan's chair, neat pile of medical journals and messy handwritten notes in one corner, empty pill tray in the other. "Ethan's not all that great at drawing…"

"Hey, that's unfair!" Ethan protests. "I can manage stickmen. Anything more elaborate is a little out of my remit, admittedly, but I'm great at stickmen." He lowers himself into the chair, slowly, painfully, legs shaking.

"Well, prove me wrong, then," she teases him. "Or you can introduce Ethan to Medieval England, Chakra, he'll love that. Ethan likes old stuff, too. Just not the slime, he won't like the slime."

"Slime?"

"Mammy thinks it's gross. You make it with glue and baking soda and contact lens solution, and then you can put glitter and food colouring in it and you mix it all together and it turns into slime."

"That sounds… interesting. And Mummy lets you make this at home? In her kitchen?" Ethan's eyebrows are raised, looking over Chakra to Alicia.

"No, I made it at Auntie Bea's house. I can show you, look…"

"I'm going to go and find the visitors' toilets," Alicia tells them. "You two will be fine together for a couple of minutes, won't you? Or I can take her with me, if you'd prefer."

She has absolutely no intention of taking Chakra where she's planning to go, of course, but Ethan doesn't need to know that.

"We'll be fine." Ethan's expression is almost a smile, almost confident at the prospect of being alone for a few minutes with his own daughter. "Although I like the sound of Medieval England more than the slime."

"Great. I'll be right back."

It takes her a matter of seconds to locate the nursing station on Ethan's floor of the clinic; it's a skill mastered after years of medical experience, she understands the basic layout.

"Hi. I'm Alicia, I'm Ethan Hardy's… well, partner. Old friend, partner, we go back a long time." She smiles sweetly at the nurse on duty, willing herself to pull this off. "We lost touch for a while, but we reconnected recently, this is the first time I've visited since."

"Oh, I know who you are. I think we all do here. He has photos of you, up in his room," she offers quickly by way of an explanation at Alicia's confused expression. "You didn't notice?"

"Ah, that. Yes, the receptionist said… I haven't noticed, I'll admit, but I've only just persuaded him to open the curtains and let some daylight in, and then I was busy sorting out… our daughter, so…" She had forgotten Kerry the receptionist's words entirely until that moment, makes a mental note to look around Ethan's room properly upon her return, no longer preoccupied with worries about Ethan and Chakra finding some common ground of sorts. "Listen, I wanted to ask you…"

"I'm afraid there's a limit to what I can say, what with…"

"Patient confidentiality, I know. I'm a doctor. Which is why I don't quite understand," Alicia begins carefully. "I'm an ED doctor, Huntington's Disease isn't quite my area of expertise as such, but I did do a lot of research when Ethan first began noticing symptoms. That was eight years ago now. I know there's no one time scale with Huntington's, I know it can vary from patient to patient. So when I found out he was here, well, I assumed…"

"You thought the disease would have progressed further than it has?" the nurse finishes for her.

"Well, yes. I mean, I haven't really managed to get a feel for how far it's limiting him right now, I think he's trying to hide the mobility loss he does have, but from what I can see that he can do, I… well, I don't quite understand why he's here, really. I mean, he could be living independently, surely?"

"Listen, I really shouldn't be saying this. But… I've been working here a long time, and he's certainly the mildest case I've ever seen in here as an inpatient, yes. He was when he arrived and he still is now. Medically, he doesn't need to be here. Not yet, anyway."

"So he admitted himself? It was voluntary?"

"All our residents are here voluntarily. The Avalon's a private clinic, we aim to provide care in a less institutional setting, if you will. We have open grounds here, we're right in the countryside, it's a more peaceful environment than many specialist centres. Kind of like a combination of a retreat and a residential home. We encourage various types of therapy, alternative remedies, things like that. There's not a lot we can do for them medically, but you'll know that, of course. But there's a huge correlation between Huntington's and mental health, so we try to create as healing an environment as we can, given the circumstances. But that said, we are designed for patients who are no longer capable of independent living, yes. You say you're a doctor; I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't already know by saying Ethan's a long way from that stage yet."

"So why…?"

"Residency is at the discretion of the Avalon Clinic trust board. I wouldn't know why. There's nothing stopping patients at an earlier stage of Huntington's development admitting themselves, I would imagine, but it's not a choice the majority of Huntington's patients would make, I guess. Most want to cling onto their independence as long as they can. I suppose you could say Ethan's quite unusual in that respect."

Alicia nods, smiles gratefully. "Thank you. You've… well. You've confirmed what I thought was the case."

"You're welcome. I'm glad you're here, he hardly gets any visitors. Personal visitors, anyway. Oh, you don't know? Well, I suppose telling you that can't do you any harm, it's not exactly a secret. He's affiliated with the University of Bath, I don't think he's ever been officially staff, as such, he mostly supervises PhD research. He did some lecturing for medical students when he first came here, I think, he still does the occasional lecture. It's just harder for him to get there now. I imagine that's why he mostly sticks to the PhD medics nowadays, they usually travel here, or he supervises them over Skype. So yes, he gets visitors. Just not a lot of personal ones. Anyway, I'll let you get on."

Alicia is frozen for a moment as she watches the nurse disappear down the corridor, mind racing, so many emotions to contend with she doesn't quite know what to feel.

She's been looking in all the wrong places. All these years, years of searching, and she's only ever bothered with hospital and GPs, despite knowing his fine motor skills were starting to become compromised already when he'd left. She had assumed that he must have left medicine for good, that there was no way of abusing her position as an NHS doctor to track him down through the system, that as much as it killed her inside, she was going to have to let him go.

Stupidly, it never even occurred to her to check at medical schools.

All these years, and he's been here the whole time.

And yet fighting back tears can't turn the clock back.

She never used to cry so easily, but eight years of single parenthood has changed her.

Eight years without Ethan has changed her, more than she had truly appreciated until now.

Alicia can't quite decide how she should feel about that.

She's nervous again, heading back into Ethan's room. This feels as though it's the ultimate test, of sorts, and yet Alicia can't quite rationalise why she feels that way even to herself. Ethan and Chakra have missed out on eight years together, eight years' worth of the bonding time they should have had, eight years that they will never get back, that they can't possibly begin to compensate for completely in the space of just five minutes alone in each other's company.

This isn't a deal-breaker. If they haven't managed to find a way to be at peace in each other's company, to begin making up for those lost years, it's not the end of the world, it doesn't mean that they won't only means that they need more time, that they're going to have to take this slowly, incredibly slowly.

There's nothing riding on those five minutes she's left them alone together, not really.

So why does it feel to Alicia as though this is going to determine absolutely everything, that if she walks back into that room to find them sitting in silence, awkward, it's all over forever?

"So, tell me again, which ones am I?"

Alicia hovers in the doorway for a moment, just out of sight, listening, unwilling to admit to herself she's still a little too afraid to go in.

"Robin Hood, Arthur and Merlin. And Newt Scamander. He's from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. He's not really Newt Scamander though, I think that one's just a knight. And we're sharing the dragon."

"That's right, I remember about the dragon. And so you must be…"

"Marian, Morgause, Guinevere and Grindelwald. And the dragon."

"Right, I see. Proper crossover, then."

"What's a crossover?"

"It's when characters from lots of different stories are all part of one big story."

"Oh, okay. Ethan, I think you put Robin Hood in the dragon cave by mistake."

"I did, didn't I? Right… can he call Morgause to use her magic powers to fight off the dragon? Or are you busy being the dragon?"

There's a moment's pause as her daughter- their daughter- considers. "I can do both."

Alicia decides it's only fair to spare Ethan from an epic dragon battle.

"Sorry, sorry, I got a bit lost looking for the visitors' toilets," she covers, takes in the still-open curtains, the plastic figures scattered across Ethan's table, medical notes abandoned on the shelf in the corner. "Are you two getting on alright?"

"We are. Ethan knows loads more about history than you do, Mammy, but he's never seen Fantastic Beasts."

"Well, I told you that, didn't I, I told you Ethan liked history." _Sorry_ , she mouths at Ethan. "Her new thing's King Arthur."

"You bought me the book."

"I did, I can't really complain, can I?" Alicia agrees. "She likes Michael Morpurgo, don't you, Chakra? Or anything with words in it, really. She's not that fussy."

"I liked books when I was your age, too," Ethan tells Chakra. "Has your mum read you The Princess Bride yet?"

"No."

"Well, I'll have to get you a copy of that, it's a classic if you like fantasy. I loved it as a child, my older brother used to make fun of me."

"Cal?"

"Yes, Cal." There's a hint of sadness in Ethan's tone. "Uncle Cal, I guess. Listen, if you like stories about King Arthur, Mummy needs to take you to Glastonbury Abbey."

"It's on our list," Alicia tells him. "We're here for a few days yet."

"How… how long?" It's only as Ethan poses that question, nervous, a little shy, that Alicia realises at no point has she thought to mention how long they're staying.

She hasn't been fair; this is hard on him too.

If she's going to make this work, she's going to have to find the balance point between Chakra's needs and Ethan's somehow figure out a way to handle this that works for both of them and doesn't crush her heart into pieces in the middle of them both.

"Just until the end of the week, this time." Her tone is careful, calculated; Alicia needs him to know that they could be back next week, needs him also to know that there's no pressure, that if he feels things are moving too fast or just that he's done, wants them gone altogether, she won't force him to be involved.

She can't force him to want them back, after all, and she won't resort to begging him, not after last time.

This isn't about what she wants, it can't be.

He made the decision to walk out on her eight years ago, only he can decide he wants to be in his daughter's life.

And of course, being Chakra's dad doesn't automatically equate to wanting her back too, Alicia shakes herself.

She has to remember that, or this is going to break her heart all over again, and she can't fall apart this time, not now she has Chakra.

She refuses to go back to those dark days again.

"And…" Ethan pauses, hesitant. "I mean, if you want to, obviously, if you both want to… you could… you could visit again. If you wanted to."

There's so much Alicia wants to tell him in that moment. So much she wants to say and so little she knows how to; there's such a fine line between telling him what she thinks he needs to hear and pushing things too hard too soon, alienating him, dragging him back to that angry place in which he'll throw them out again, undo all of their efforts today in one brisk stroke.

"Hey, don't think you're getting rid of us that easily," she teases. "You've just proven how great you are at playing Robin Hood meets Camelot meets assorted mythical creatures, she's totally going to want to do this again, aren't you, Chakra?"

"Are we coming back tomorrow?"

"We can do, yes. Actually, I was thinking," she begins carefully, turns back to Ethan. "Glastonbury Abbey. We were going to walk, but I could book a taxi instead. You could come with us. You'd be much better with the guidebook than I am, although Chakra can pretty much read those things by herself now…"

"Oh…" Ethan smiles awkwardly. "I've actually got plans for this afternoon… I… well, I do some teaching, PhDs, mostly. I've got one coming this afternoon. So you moved back to Newcastle, then?"

"For a while," Alicia tells him. He's changing the subject, and both of them know it. "Long enough for Chakra to pick up the accent. I got offered a paeds post, part time, it was right before she started school and I needed it for my consultancy portfolio, it made sense. We moved back to Holby last September. Couldn't keep away, I guess. What about tomorrow, then?"

"Hmm?" Ethan frowns.

"For Glastonbury Abbey. We can go tomorrow, instead. Come on, Ethan, it'll be fun," she tries.

He falters. "Look, Alicia, I really don't think… I mean…" he wavers at Chakra's expression; that's the trouble with kids, Alicia ponders, they're so open, it's their only fault, really, they see the world in black and white and they're so easy to read emotionally. "I'll slow you down, Chakra… I'm not very mobile…"

"Because of your illness?"

"I… yes, because of my illness." He stares at Chakra for a moment, as though he's only just taking in everything he's lost, everything he could have had in another lifetime, and yet that another lifetime means such different things to each of them, Alicia realises.

To Ethan, it's another lifetime in which he'd never had this awful disease at all.

To Alicia, it's simply another lifetime in which he had stayed.

 **I'm so sorry for the delay getting this chapter up! As you will already know if you also read my other Ethan/Alicia story, I've just moved countries- although moved is probably a little overdramatic because I'm actually moving back again before Christmas- but this last week has basically just been incredibly chaotic and I haven't had a lot of time for writing. BUT I am getting my head around everything now, so updates should be more regular next week :)**

 **Thank you so much to PanicPeachPit and my two guests for reviewing the last chapter, your reviews always make my day. I would LOVE feedback on this one, I'm really trying to start building interactions between the three of them now and it's taken a while to get this chapter finished, so please feel free to give me some pointers. Kids are difficult to write!**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	6. Chapter 6

**So there are a few hints of where the story might be going next in this chapter, let me know if you spot them...**

 **Chapter 6**

"Doesn't that look amazing, Chakra? That's so much better than the one in Holby, isn't it? They've got a climbing frame and everything."

"Is it supposed to be shaped like a castle?"

"I think so. Why don't you go and test it out?"

"Where will you be?" There's worry etched across her small face.

"I'm going to be right here, okay? This table. Look, you'll be able to see me. I'm going to order us drinks and I'm going to sit here and watch you. Do you want food? I bet I can persuade them to make us chips..."

Her daughter shakes her head, already skipping off in the direction of the adventure playground. "How long are we staying, Mammy?"

"For an hour or so, or until we freeze to death, whichever comes first," Alicia tells her. "And then we'll go and see Ethan, try and persuade him to come out with us later."

"Why doesn't he want to?" Chakra asks. She's paused halfway along the path, fidgets, caught between sprinting towards the climbing frame and lingering a little longer, in search of answers Alicia just can't provide.

"I don't know, Chakra," She admits. "I think… I wonder if maybe, it's because he's embarrassed."

"Why?"

"Well, because… when I last saw him, before you were born, he was starting to get ill then, but not really. I'm not sure he can walk long distances anymore. You have to promise you won't tell him we talked about this, okay?"

"Promise."

"Good girl. I think perhaps he's embarrassed for us to see that he can't walk very far, even with his crutches."

"So does he have a wheelchair?"

"I don't know, sweetheart, and I really don't think it's a good idea to ask him, okay? He'll tell us when he's ready."

"Okay. Do you think maybe that's why he doesn't want to go outside?"

"Maybe. But this is all hypothetical. Do you know what that means?" She pauses as her daughter shakes her head. "It means it might be right, or it might not be. We're just thinking out loud here. And once we've finished, we're never going to talk about it in front of Ethan. It might upset him. Now go on, that slide looks amazing. But no throwing yourself off the swings!" Alicia calls after her, murmurs the next part under her breath. "I really, really don't want to visit the local ED on my week off."

She ventures over to the bar in the pub entrance, glances over her shoulder every few seconds that way she never quite knew how before she had Chakra, returns back outside into the garden area with a water complete with bright pink straw and a large glass of wine, pulls out her phone.

 _Bea: Just fed C's rabbits. Tell her they miss her. That's totally a scientific finding, their noses keep twitching. Put your post in the usual place, mostly junk I think. Hope everything okay there? Let me know if you want me to get weird fake milk in for you etc. See you Monday x_

 _Mam: How's everything today? Persuaded Ethan out his room yet? Let me know if you want Sunday dinner tomorrow, I'll only be in anyway. Love you xxx_

 _Mrs Beauchamp: All cleared for the week after next, I've booked your leave through. Though I can't say I approve. Bring Chakra into work on Mon, you can have my office. I'm sure I'll see you beforehand, but if not, I hope it goes well. Come and see me after if you need to talk._

 _Mam: Found this in Tesco earlier. Birthday present for Chak? xxx_

 _Holby NHS Trust: Reminder: your appointment for Chakra Munroe is booked for Monday 8 March 10am._

Alicia sighs.

It's back to reality on Monday, and no part of her is ready.

They've established a routine, of sorts, over the last few days. She and Chakra visit Ethan in the morning, organised chaos, Chakra scatters medieval plastic figures and Auntie Bea-procured rainbow slime and piles of drawings and pink Lego across Ethan's desk and then they disappear at lunch time, give him some space, find something touristy to do in the afternoon and come back to see Ethan again in the evening, each time attempting to persuade him to go with them and each time failing miserably.

It's not that they aren't getting on well, now. They've made definite progress, over the last few days. A part of Alicia desperately craves some time alone with Ethan, like it was before; she wouldn't give up Chakra for the world, of course she wouldn't, wouldn't trade anything for watching Chakra and Ethan learn to be at ease with one another, but at the same time she wishes she could persuade Ethan to leave the confines of the Avalon Clinic and venture out here with her. Chakra can happily entertain herself for a good hour given a decent children's playground; they could have chosen one of the tables with proper chairs instead of the park bench she's opted for today, Ethan could have sat outside, had what Alicia suspects would have been his first proper fresh air in eight years. They could have talked, talked properly, because as much as she loves her daughter, she and Ethan can't have a proper conversation all the while Chakra is there with them, can't even begin working out how to heal the wounds that time has left open and raw between them, whether they can even be healed at all.

She wants this to be something that can be fixed, her and Ethan. She wants it so badly that it's taking all her self-restraint not to try to push things too hard too soon; because this isn't just about her and her relationship or lack of one with Ethan anymore, this is also about the relationship she hopes Chakra might be able to have with her dad, one day, and Alicia can't mess that up for her, she can't, it isn't fair.

Chakra deserves a relationship with Ethan. She deserves it more than anything in the world and Alicia would move mountains to ensure she got it if she could, and yet it's the one thing she can't give her.

Only Ethan can do that.

Absentmindedly, she unlocks her phone, ignores the messages, scrolls through her contacts.

Maybe.

Just maybe.

Does she dare get her hopes up, only to have them shattered all over again?

She should have deleted his number, a long time ago. She had called him every day, multiple times a day, when he first left, in denial, painfully reluctant to let him go, to admit to herself that he had walked out of her life with no intention of coming back. Her persistent phone calls must have trailed off a few weeks before she'd had Chakra, perhaps; Alicia remembers so little of those months with proper clarity, couldn't pin it down more than that. She had tried again after Chakra was born, of course, everyone had, but it had gone straight to voicemail every time, impossible to tell whether he had turned his phone off at the sudden influx of calls, perfectly adamant he wanted no contact with any of them, or abandoned that number altogether, SIM card discarded in the bottom of a drawer somewhere, a remnant of a life he had long-since left behind.

She should have deleted it then, but Alicia could never quite face it, tried again a few times spontaneously over the next couple of years until finally she surrendered, not quite accepting but resigned to it all, at least. But she couldn't ever delete his number, couldn't take that final step, cut the ties.

Perhaps a part of her was always hoping that this moment, this second chance, might one day come.

Her heart is in her mouth as the dialling tone starts up.

 _He isn't going to answer, Alicia._

That's what she tells herself. She has to mentally prepare herself for this; it's been eight years, this probably isn't even his number anymore, and even if it was, have they really made enough progress over the last few days that he would be prepared to…

"Alicia?"

She was so completely convinced that he wouldn't answer, so certain, so busy mentally preparing herself for heartbreak, that when all of a sudden, he's there, calls her name softly, all she can do is freeze.

"Alicia? Alicia, are you there?"

"… Sorry, sorry. Hi." She's awkward, now, as awkward as they were with one another when she first transferred back to Holby, dancing around one another, so many things they wanted to say and no idea where to start. "So, you still use this number, then?"

"Alicia…" Ethan's voice breaks. "I'm so sorry, I honestly can't…"

"No, Ethan, no, I didn't mean it like that," she curses. "Look, just forget I said…"

"No, no, it's alright. You have a perfectly valid point. Alicia, what I did then… there's no excuse for it, of course there isn't, I'm not trying to make excuses for how I treated you, but I was in a dark place then…" he trails off, and Alicia can practically hear the horror setting in on the other end of the phone. "It was when Chakra was born, wasn't it?" he realises. "Oh god, all the calls, the week everyone was trying to get through, it would have been around then, April, mid-April… Alicia, I'm so sorry, I would have… I thought you'd have had to… I just assumed… I…"

"Ethan, you don't have to explain yourself," Alicia sighs softly. "You were in shock, you had every reason to be upset, I can't even begin to imagine…"

"But you were pregnant, Alicia, you were pregnant, and you needed me, I should have pulled myself together and…"

"And what?" Her tone is gentle; somehow, she needs to convey to him that she's forgiven him, as hard as his decision has been to accept. She can't let him beat himself up about this, it's only going to destroy him too. "Ethan, your whole world had just been turned upside down, and then I had to tell you I was pregnant, talk about crap timing…"

"That wasn't your fault…"

"No, and nor was it yours. It's a disease, Ethan. It's not something you could have controlled. All I'm saying is I understand, okay?"

"I wasn't running away from you, Alicia. I swear. I was running away from my illness, I didn't want to accept it was happening, I couldn't face it but I would never… I never meant to hurt you, and I know how ridiculous that must sound, I know hurting you is all I've spent the last eight years doing… god, you were just trying to tell me I was a dad, and I couldn't even do you the curtesy of picking up the phone, I didn't even have the guts to talk to you properly, I should have told you I wasn't doing it because I didn't love you, it was me, I couldn't get my head around losing everything to this… this thing, _Huntington's_ , I just couldn't…"

"Ethan!" She practically has to shout to win his attention, to snap him out of his downward spiral of self-loathing and despair and regret and worry and constant apologies, fully aware that nothing can ever quite make the pain he put her through in eight years better and yet that apparently doesn't mean to say he isn't going to keep trying and trying, obsessive, desperate, grovelling. "Ethan, we cannot make every conversation we get to have together without Chakra about this, okay? It's alright." It's not alright, not really, but it is in the context Alicia means it, hopes Ethan will realise that too. "It's over, it's done, it's in the past, now. We can put it behind us. Okay? I didn't call because I wanted you to apologise again."

He's silent for a moment, pensive. "You know, you always were too forgiving."

She smiles at that. "Only for the people who are worth it."

"And you think…" Ethan is hesitant, pauses again. "You think… you think I'm worth it?"

"Wouldn't let you near Chakra if I didn't," Alicia replies simply. "Did you really think I was only trying your mobile again because I wanted you to grovel?"

"I just thought… I thought we hadn't really had the chance, I didn't want to do it in front of Chakra…"

"Ethan. Ethan, listen. Chakra and I went into Glastonbury, we did the King Arthur walk, or something, I found it on the internet, half of it's probably made up for the benefit of tourists but Chakra's convinced she's walked the same route as Joseph of Arimathea and found the rock Merlin left King Arthur's sword in, so she's happy. She's still full of energy, so we've found the pub and mercifully it's got a children's play area, so she's busy wearing herself out and…"

And she wishes he were here to keep her company, that he had agreed to come out with them today, but he isn't, and so she's phoning him instead because it's the next best thing.

That's what Alicia wants to tell him.

Why are she and Ethan always so hopeless at telling one another the things they need to say?

"I've missed you," Ethan admits. "I've really missed you, Alicia."

"I've missed you, too. Listen, I… we have to go home tomorrow," she admits reluctantly. "I have to work, I only booked one week…"

"No, no, it's alright, I understand." There's disappointment in his tone, notably so, despite what Alicia knows are his best attempts to conceal it. "It's been… this week, it's been… well, it's been great. It really has. I know I haven't exactly been the easiest to warm to…"

"Hey, neither of us think that. We just got off to a rocky start, that's all, when did us two ever not?"

"Thank you," he says softly. "For persevering. For understanding. I'm… well. I'm going to miss you both."

"Hey, what makes you think we're not coming back? We've got to go back for a few days, I've got to work, but somehow, I've managed to persuade Mrs Beauchamp to give me the week after next off, and I've booked somewhere last minute, so we'll be back next Sunday, okay? We've just got a few things we need to do at home first, and then we'll be back. Only if that's okay, of course; I mean, if you've got plans, if you've got students coming, or if you're just not in the mood to see us, or whatever, we can entertain ourselves, it's not a problem."

"Of course I'll want to see you." There's an element of surprise to Ethan's tone at first, as though he can't quite understand why Alicia would think otherwise, and then he falters, catching up with her. "Listen, I… I know I… the way I've behaved towards you… I know it hasn't… I don't expect you to believe me. I wasn't well, when I left, Alicia, I couldn't… mentally, I mean. I wasn't well mentally. I knew I was going to start experiencing symptoms sooner or later, I knew that, I thought I'd prepared myself for it but when it actually happened I just… I couldn't deal with it, I didn't know how to. That was the worst part, it wasn't even the symptoms, they were minor, I could deal with those, it was more the knowing it was the beginning of the end, I couldn't cope with it, the way I reacted… It wasn't you, Alicia, it was me, it was all me."

"Ethan, you don't have to do this…"

"No, no, I know, but I want to. It took me a long time to get over it, at the beginning, I don't think I ever really got over it, to be honest. I still don't think I know how to cope with it, knowing this is mild, it's all going to get so much worse and I just have to sit here and wait to lose control of my own body…" He shudders. "Sorry, sorry, this isn't… I'm not trying to make you feel sorry for me, not after how I've treated you. I… I was on anti-depressants for two years, after, those first two years I tried to carry on working, I was lecturing, full-time, then part-time, I just couldn't hack it. I thought I'd be okay with something theoretical, I thought something less physically demanding than medicine and I'd be fine, I… well, you know how I was, before I left. I started to snap out of it, about six years ago now, and ever since then… well… ever since then, I've… I've wanted to come back, Alicia. For you. I would have for Chakra, had I known, but I was so sure… I've wanted to find you again for years, I've even planned it a few times, and I just… you deserve better than me, Alicia, Huntington's aside, you deserve someone who won't treat you the way I did, I thought I'd hurt you enough already and there was no way you'd want me back, and I wouldn't have blamed you for that, I just… I need you to know that I never stopped caring about you," he finishes at last. "I know I've done a terrible job of showing you that, but it's true. And I… I don't know where we can go from here, I don't… even if… I don't know where my disease is going to let this go from here, I really don't know. But I want you to know that I care about you. I still do. And I want to… I want to be in Chakra's life, somehow, if you'll let me…"

"Ethan. Ethan, listen to me. Let's just take all this one step at a time, okay? I… I never stopped caring about you, either," she admits. "And I… wherever this goes… let's just see. No pressure, no worrying about the future."

"How can I not?" Ethan argues. "I'm only going to get worse, Alicia, I'm going to keep getting worse until one day…"

"I know," Alicia agrees, pained. "I know that, Ethan. But that day isn't today. Or tomorrow. Or even for a good few years, unless you've been hiding a heck of a lot of symptoms from me, and you're not that good at pretending. So we're not thinking about that now. There's no point. It's going to happen one day, there's nothing we can do to change that, but it doesn't have to control now. So shall we drop in tonight? I can book a taxi, we can go and get dinner…"

"Alicia…"

"Okay, okay," she sighs. That's a battle to be fought another day. "We'll come and see you tomorrow morning, then, before we go. It might be a bit later than usual, if that's alright with you, I need to see if I can find us a local mass service for tomorrow morning."

"I thought you'd denounced your Catholic childhood and found Buddhism instead on your trip to Bhutan after… you know."

"Eddie, Ethan. It's okay to say it. And yes, yes I did, but all the decent state secondary schools in Holby seem to have a strict Catholic admission policy, so, you know. It's easy to say playing the system is wrong until it's your own child, isn't it? But yeah, I need to find a tame Catholic priest with a Sunday mass to sign off her form for this week so she can do her first communion in June and I can tick that box on her secondary school application in like, three years. Talk about having to plan ahead." She pauses, suddenly doubting herself. "I know that probably wouldn't have been your choice, I know you've never been religious…"

"No, no, Alicia… Alicia I gave up my right to have a say in those kinds of decisions a long time ago. It's not as though you could have run it by me, is it? You're an amazing mum to her."

She blushes, brushes off the compliment, undeserving. "You haven't seen all my epic parenting fails. All the times I've shouted at her when she's asked me too many questions or lost her school bag right before we need to leave and I'm tired after a nightshift, or hung over, or I've just had a shitty day and my tolerance is gone. Or the times I've lost her in the supermarket. Or the time I forgot to pick her up from gymnastics, when I was running late for work and she told me her throat hurt and she seemed alright enough so I sent her to school anyway and it turned out she had tonsillitis, or when…"

"Hey, no one's perfect," Ethan insists. "No one gets being a parent right all the time, and you've had to do it all on your own thanks to me… No, no, you don't have to make me feel better, I'm just stating a fact. Chakra's lucky to have you. It's obvious she means the world to you, and it's just as obvious that she knows that. You're doing an incredible job."

"Well, she's pretty easy to parent. Until she isn't you know, she has her moments, but I guess all kids do. I probably have you to thank for that, I refuse to believe you were a terror at her age. Me mam loves telling me how much better behaved Chak is than I ever was. Listen, I should probably go," she sighs. "I need to find her some dinner, work out where I'm taking her tomorrow morning. And then we'll come and see you, before we leave," she promises. "And we'll be back soon. Next Sunday."

"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow, then. Oh, and Alicia?"

"Yeah?"

"Shrine of Our Lady of Glastonbury. It's right in the town centre, just keep following the road out past my place, you can't miss it."

"You're an angel, thank you. I'll see you tomorrow, yeah? I…" she trails off, lost, wonders where it all went so wrong. "I miss you."

"Miss you too."

How can it be that in less than a week, in mere hours of that week, hardly any time at all, she's fallen for him all over again?

 **I didn't think I was going to have this chapter finished for a few days yet, but you all left me such lovely reviews on the last chapter I somehow managed to finish this one in a couple of hours. You guys always leave amazing reviews, but for some reason you all really touched me this time, and I totally wrote this one at double speed because of you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for being such wonderful people!**

 **You know the drill, please do let me know what you liked and what you didn't, your feedback means the world and 100% helps me improve as a writer. And if anyone would like to name Chakra's rabbits, you are very welcome!**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	7. Chapter 7

**Catherine4- your suggestion was so brilliant I just had to :)**

 **Chapter 7**

"Right, come on, Chakra, we need to be out the door in ten minutes, okay?" Alicia tells her daughter across the kitchen table. "Ten minutes and we're gone, I mean it. Have you fed the rabbits?" She pours herself another mug of coffee, closes her eyes for a moment, blinks, trying to focus.

She's not convinced she slept at all last night, unable to shake the impending sense of doom in the pit of her stomach.

"Yes, but I'm worried about Guinevere, she looks sad."

It takes Alicia a moment to catch on; her mind's all over the place this morning.

"Guinevere? You've finally decided on names for them, then?"

"Yes, Guinevere and Morgana. Like King Arthur's wife and Morgana Le Fay."

"Wow, they're seriously cultured rabbits, aren't they? I'd have just gone with Fluffy and Snowy, or something boring like that. You'll have to write Robyn and Charlotte a card to say thank you, tell them you've finally picked names."

"They're definitely girls, right? They aren't going to suddenly have babies like Charlotte's rabbits did?"

"Nope, Robyn assured me they've been checked over at the vets, they're definitely girl rabbits." The rabbits are a new addition as of the weekend before last; Chakra had been begging her for a pet for months and Alicia had told her she would think about it, but no promises, for her birthday. But when Robyn had come into work mildly panicked having found a litter of tiny new borns while attempting to clear out Charlotte's rabbit hutch (Lola the miniature lop now renamed Leo), Alicia hadn't had it in her to say no. "She's probably just half asleep, Chak, rabbits always look a bit nervous anyway. So, our appointment's at 10, okay, Mrs Beauchamp said you can sit in her office until then."

"Are you working?"

"Yep, I'm on shift, I'm going to slip out right before. And then Auntie Bea's going to come and pick you up, she's off today and she's said she wants to spend the day with you, isn't that nice of her?"

"Can we do science?"

"You'll have to ask her, won't you? I finish at 6, I'll come and get you then. Do you want to go to gym later?"

"Please?"

"Okay, but I'll make you a deal. You get to go to gym if you eat all your lunch."

"But Auntie Bea makes terrible hummus sandwiches."

"You can't mess up hummus sandwiches, Chakra."

"Auntie Bea can."

"Then I'll give Auntie Bea twenty quid and tell her to pick somewhere nice for lunch, she won't suspect a thing. Go on, you need to brush your teeth, quickly, please. Do you even know where your gym stuff is?"

Chakra frowns, considers. "Maybe."

"Right, I'll find your gym stuff, you go and get ready." Alicia tips the rest of her third coffee of the morning into a portable cup, loads the dishwasher, brushes her hair into a ponytail while scanning the living room for abandoned elements of Chakra's gym kit (why leave one shoe on the sofa and one on top of the microwave, just why?), double checks her folder of preparation is in her handbag, heads up to the bathroom. "Two minutes, Chak!"

Her phone vibrates as she heads back out of the bathroom, and somehow, inexplicably, she knows it's him before she even checks the screen.

 _Hey, just wanted to say good morning, really. Hope you got back safely last night._

She smiles. It's just so Ethan; she can practically see him, when she closes her eyes, agonising over the wording, really just after an excuse to text her but far too shy and awkward to be so blatant about it.

"Chakra, I'm expecting you to be ready to walk out the door by the time I get down there!" she shouts, quickly types out a response.

 _You don't need an excuse to text me, you know. Back safely, went over to Mam's for dinner last night. She says she's taking herself off to Madeira for a week in June, I'll believe it when it happens. Got to drag C out the door now, but I'll call you this evening? X_

Screw it, if they're going to do this, she might as well start sticking kisses on the end of her texts.

 _I'd like that. Any time is fine, I'll be here. Guess you have to do bedtime etc. Speak later x_

In another lifetime, he'd be here with her, today. They'd be doing this together, it wouldn't be just her, her having to put on her best mother lioness impression and defend her cub because no one else is going to do it, this is all on her, it always has been. Ethan would go with them, she wouldn't keep getting it all wrong, she always was the impulsive one, Ethan the one who thought things through, acted carefully, deliberated…

She misses him. That's what it all comes down to.

She knew she missed him. She's moved on, she's had to, for Chakra, but it's always still been there in the back of her mind, just out of sight but there, real.

Now she's found him again, it feels as though she never got over him at all.

"Auntie Elle!" Chakra exclaims happily, as Alicia leads her into the ED.

"Hi, sweetie. I want to hear all about your week away with your Mum, but later, okay?"

 _Thank you_ , Alicia mouths at her gratefully.

She hasn't told them, at the ED. She's told Bea and Elle; she's become close to the two of them over the last eight years, and Charlie and Duffy know, of course, after Charlie had tracked Ethan down for her in the first place. She had thought long and hard about telling Mrs Beauchamp the truth behind her sudden request for annual leave, decided in the end to just be honest, that if nothing else, if it was all a total disaster and she came into work supposedly fresh from her week off in a foul mood and with her head all over the place, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to have Mrs Beauchamp already aware of the situation.

It feels wrong again, Alicia realises. After this last week, stepping back into the ED without Ethan feels so horribly wrong all over again, and yet to Chakra, it won't feel any different.

She doesn't know how she's supposed to feel about that.

"Mammy?"

She shakes herself back to reality, suddenly conscious that she's staring into space, lost, her daughter frowning at her in confusion. "Sorry. Sorry… right, I'm going to get changed and then we'll head down to Mrs Beauchamp's office."

"Can't I stay with you? Like, work experience?"

"Yes, you can, when you're sixteen. I'm going to change, okay? You sit here, don't touch the coffee machine, it's seriously temperamental at the best of times. And if anyone asks, you can tell them where we went last week, but don't… just, remember what we talked about earlier, don't tell them about Ethan, okay?" she asks quietly, conscious that the staffroom isn't quite as quiet as she would like. "We will, but not just yet, we don't want to overwhelm him, if he finds out. Can you hold my phone for me? And I think we've got a lot of locums in today, so what do you tell them if they say this is the staffroom and you shouldn't be here?"

"That I'm Dr Munroe's daughter and Mrs Beauchamp says it's okay?"

"Good girl. I won't be long," she promises, as she heads off in the direction of the staffroom.

God, she wants this morning to be over.

"Alicia," Mrs Beauchamp greets her as she heads along the corridor towards the staffroom. "Hi, Chakra. Did you and your mum have a good week away?"

Chakra looks up at Alicia, hesitant.

"Hey, what we talked about earlier, it doesn't apply to Mrs Beauchamp, you can tell her whatever you want, okay?"

"Oh, okay. It was good, thank you. We went on lots of walks, and we went to Stonehenge and read about the Bronze age, but we haven't been to see King Arthur's grave at Glastonbury Abbey yet because Mammy thinks Ethan will like it too, but we couldn't persuade him to leave the place where he lives, Mammy thinks he's agri-phobic."

"Agoraphobic, Chakra."

"Agoraphobic. It means he's scared to go outside because he hasn't for a very long time. So Mammy says we're going to drive down on Sunday because she thinks it might make it easier to persuade him to come out with us. And there's a tor, that has a church tower at the top, except it's not a church tower anymore because the church is gone, and you can walk down to where the Isle of Avalon used to be, because the marshland is different now so it's not like an island anymore, and it's really pretty."

"Well, it sounds like you've had fun."

"Chakra has swallowed Michael Morpurgo's book about King Arthur and moved onto The Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great," Alicia explains apologetically. "Thanks so much for letting her use your office."

"Oh, it's not a problem, I'll be in meetings all morning anyway. What's that?" Mrs Beauchamp frowns at the bag of folders over Alicia's shoulder.

"Chakra, why don't you go and set up all your school stuff in Mrs Beauchamp's office, I'll be there in a minute," Alicia tells her, waits until the office door is safely closed before she turns back to Mrs Beauchamp. "School reports, every one she ever had from her school in Newcastle to contrast the ones from this year, nine medical journal articles on why veganism is perfectly safe for kids just in case they want to go there again, every single email I have ever sent to her teacher about Sophia in her class and her total meltdowns at the school gates, and every pathetic brushing it off response school have ever sent me back."

"Alicia…"

"I know, I know, the whole point of a psych assessment is to help her, I get that. I just want to make sure they're going to help her with the problems that are actually there, not the non-existent ones her GP keeps obsessing over. She came third in her cross-country race she did with school in November, for goodness sake, out of what, 200 kids, something like that. Do they really think she would have been able to do that if I've been starving her? Or maybe they think I suddenly forgot how to feed her around November time or something, I don't know. Nothing they say makes any goddamned sense. But it's a bit of a coincidence, isn't it?" Alicia rants. "She's totally happy and healthy for seven years, loves school so much she practically has to be dragged away from the gates, then she doesn't settle into her new school at all, this awful girl Sophia in her new class makes it her mission to make her life a total misery and all of a sudden this? They probably think I'm telling her to go into full breakdown mode every time I try to take her to school, I swear they just have me down as one of those awkward parents…"

"Just see how it goes," Mrs Beauchamp tells her. "If it goes as badly as you think it will, tell me, I have some contacts in child psychiatry. It would be London, but I could pull some strings, get you an alternative referral."

She smiles gratefully. "Thank you. I think I'm probably going to have to take you up on that."

"Give it a chance, Alicia. If you want to take the afternoon off…"

She shakes her head. "It's fine, thank you. I just want to work, take my mind off things. Bea's going to come and get Chakra after, I promise I'll clear up any chaos she's left in your office on my lunch break."

"Oh, honestly, she can't possibly make as much mess as Grace used to. If it's any consolation, she seems absolutely fine right now."

"Oh, I know. Believe me, I know. That's exactly what worries me," Alicia admits. "I just don't see how we can go on like this, you know? If the psych team decide she's fine then that means they think…"

"That means I call my contact in London and you get a second opinion," Mrs Beauchamp finishes for her. "I went through it, with Grace. It wasn't the same situation, but I had a referral to Social Services. And nothing came of it. Yes, it was hell, but it came to nothing in the end. But it won't come to that, I'll make sure you get a second opinion if this doesn't go well."

Alicia smiles, strained. "Thank you. This is exactly what annoys me, though, maybe she does need a psych assessment now, but if they'd just listened to me months ago… Look, I should go and get on, I'm sorry…"

"It's not a problem. Take your time, okay? I know how stressful it can be. Take off whenever you want to later, you don't want to be worrying about being late. And Alicia?"

"Hmm?" She looks up, having begun to turn away.

"How's Ethan?"

"Oh…" Alicia pauses, so unsure how to answer that question, one she should have predicted and yet it's caught her completely off guard. "Surprisingly well, all things considered," she says carefully. "I mean… when he… when he left… he gave me the impression it was going to be a rapid decline… I mean, he's clearly lost mobility. I couldn't judge how much, I couldn't persuade him to leave his room, and I would love to say that's because he didn't want me to see but it sounds like he's barely left the building since he's been there. But… I think it went well. Better than I expected, anyway. I don't think he was thrilled to see me at first, but once he got over the shock… I don't know where we can go from here, to be honest, I'm not sure how this is supposed to work, I don't know if there even is a right way of doing this. But he wants to get to know Chakra, so…"

"And that's all it's about, is it?"

She blushes, bites her lip. "Am I really that obvious?"

"Just be careful, Alicia," Mrs Beauchamp warns. "Eight years is a long time… I'm not saying you can't pick up where you left off, maybe you will, but… just be careful, okay? I don't want to see you get hurt again."

Alicia is exhausted by the time she's finally home, collected Chakra, dinner cooked, rabbit feeding supervised, hair washed (she _needs_ to persuade Chakra to have it cut somehow, that's another half an hour of her life detangling and spraying it with Moroccan oil and blow drying she'll never get back), bedtime story read, debriefed over the phone by Bea (lunch mostly eaten, afternoon spent making baking soda volcanoes and by the way, Chakra's gym coach said she's yet to pay costume fees for this year's show and can she please do so by the end of the week?), remembered she's on night shift tomorrow night and made up the bed in the spare room for her mam, poured herself a large glass of red, collapsed on the sofa with her phone.

She'll transfer the money she owes Chakra's gym coach, settle her debts now, and then she'll phone Ethan, she decides.

She had agreed, after all, but it's about more than just a moral obligation.

The truth is she's had a nightmare of a day, and she just wants to hear his voice, to pretend for a while that the hurt and rejection of the last eight years is all a terrible dream, that he's just away somewhere over night, that he'll be back here with her tomorrow…

The world isn't like that, of course, has been too cruel to them for that to ever be the case again, but that can't stop her dreaming.

She double checks the invoice absentmindedly, logs into her bank account, doesn't even notice at first she's so tired, too busy selecting the right account details, confirming, one less thing she needs to remember to do if she just deals with it now, she figures.

It's only after she's completed the transfer that she realises what she would have noticed before, had she been paying attention.

Alicia stares.

There's only one explanation, she figures, entering back in to view her transactions, only one explanation that makes any sense and sure enough she's right. There it is, clear as day on her bank statement, completely unexpected, baffling, in some ways and yet totally predictable in others.

She groans, head in her hands, takes a moment to work out what on earth she's going to say before she logs back out again, selects his name from her recent calls.

"Hello?"

"You've just transferred an absolutely ridiculous amount of money into my bank account." It isn't a question, she knows it's him; 'E Hardy' displayed clearly in the transaction details. "I'm beyond confused. I didn't even realise you still had my bank details…"

"Never deleted them."

"Well, yes, I guessed you hadn't persuaded Mrs Beauchamp to get them off the payroll system for you, but what I don't understand is…"

"Eight years," Ethan blurts out. "Well, seven years eleven months if you want to be technical about it, I guess, but I rounded it up, it was easier. Eight years of food, clothes, childcare, school stuff, gymnastics fees and whatever else she does, I know the train fare down here won't have been cheap… all that stuff. Eight years' worth of money I should have been contributing towards my own child. I figured you've been having to pick up the slack for me until now, and well, we both made her, didn't we, I know I haven't been in her life those eight years but I fathered her and I left you to bring her up, so…"

"Ethan." Alicia closes her eyes, too mentally drained to try and make sense of the figures, takes a long sip of her glass of wine. "Ethan, this is far, far too much, how did you…"

"There's a government child maintenance calculator. I think it's designed for divorced parents really, it doesn't quite fit our… well, our situation's probably a bit unusual, but you put in your weekly income after tax into the calculator and how much of the parenting you do, or… well, or how little, in my case… and it tells you how much you should be paying the other parent per week. You'd be surprised how well med school graduate supervision pays, even part time hours. I just multiplied it out to work out how much I've cheated you out of over eight years and rounded it up a bit. It said I'm supposed to be paying you weekly, so I've set up a direct debit…"

"I can't accept this, Ethan…"

"Yes, you can. This is only what I should have been giving you, you're just getting it in one long-overdue instalment."

"You don't owe me anything…"

"She's my daughter, Alicia, of course I do. Look, I… I know I've left it far too late, but I… I really would like to try and work out a way to be her dad, if you'll let me."

She sighs. "You are her dad already, Ethan. I… as long as you promise me you aren't going to break her heart, of course you can see her, but you don't have to…"

"I can't get to do all the fun bits with her and not pay a penny towards the practical stuff, Alicia, that isn't fair. Even if I… well, I've looked into this, even if someone opts out of being a parent…"

"You didn't, Ethan, you didn't know…"

"I know that, but hear me out, please. Even if someone decides they want no part of it, they're still supposed to pay maintenance, so whichever way you look at it, that money's only what I owe you."

"I can't take this, that place must be costing you a fortune…"

"Not as much as you might think. I… well, I don't… let's just say they charge me a reduced rate." She's right, Alicia realises, she's been right in her suspicions all along that his physical deterioration hasn't yet extended beyond minor levels. "Like I said, medical academia pays surprisingly well, and I haven't exactly had a lot to spend it on. So take it, Alicia. Please."

"I don't need it…"

"You've just made consultant, I know, you said. So put it into a savings account in Chakra's name, or something. Whatever you think is best, you'll know more about how all that works than I do, I'm a bit out of my depth. But please, Alicia, take it. It'll make me feel better."

"You don't have to do this, Ethan, it's all… I'm not holding it against you, okay, I understand, you don't have to…"

"I know. I know, and I really appreciate you being so understanding. I don't deserve that. But I want to do this, okay? For you. I want to contribute towards my daughter, I should have been doing it from the start. So please, let me.

Alicia sighs, defeated. "Okay. But if you need any of it back, at any time…"

"I won't. But thank you. I appreciate the thought."

They're both silent for a few moments, pensive.

"How's… how's work?" Ethan asks at last, and she laughs.

"You really miss the place that much, you want to hear me moan about it?"

He's laughing with her now. "Well, maybe a little."

"Not a lot's changed, really." _Though it's not the same without you_ , she wants to tell him, but she can't find the words. "Duffy retired, a couple of years ago now. Though Charlie's still going, I think he's going to be one of those NHS workers you read about in the media, 80 years of service or something ludicrous. Mrs Beauchamp's… well, Mrs Beauchamp."

"You were in today?"

"Do I really sound that tired?" she teases. "Yeah, 8 til 6. Night shift tomorrow, but I've had a lot less of those since Chak, I can't really complain. Don't think Mrs Beauchamp would ever admit it, but she was definitely doing something suspicious with the rotas when I came off maternity. My paeds placement was more regular, and obviously unofficial perks of being a consultant everyone always denies, now."

"Sorry, I should let you go, you need to get some sleep…"

"Hey, night shift tomorrow, remember? Not tonight."

"And work was alright?"

"Course it was," she laughs off the subtle concern in his tone. "Why?"

"Just… I don't know. Thought you sounded stressed, that's all."

"Don't be silly," Alicia tells him, voice laced with false optimism. "Don't be silly, Ethan. Everything's fine."

 **I am honestly so overwhelmed by the popularity of the last chapter- thank you so much to you all for reading this, and a special thank you to my wonderful reviewers! You guys leave the kindest feedback. I almost didn't publish this story on here at all because I thought no one would read it, your support means the world.**

 **And a special thank you to 20BlueRoses and PanicPeachPit for your kind words about characterisation and dialogue, these were always the things I found hardest when I last wrote** **fanfiction- I am absolutely thrilled you think so!**

 **Reviews would be amazing :)**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

"Mammy?"

Alicia groans, turns over, still half asleep to face the doorway, eyes still firmly closed, the darkness she can sense around her making it clear it's far, far too early.

"Mammy?"

There's a level of distress in her daughter's voice she hadn't detected before, too half-asleep to notice, but now she's detected it Alicia is wide awake, props herself up on one elbow, frowns.

"Why are you standing in the doorway, Chakra, when do you ever do that? You can come in, it's okay."

She tiptoes into Alicia's room slowly, holds back.

"Hey, come on, it's okay." Alicia pulls back the covers, arm stretched out. "Are you going to tell me what this is about? Chakra?" This is bad, she's realising now, consciousness slowly returning to her. This is definitely bad, usually when this happens she gets a small hand on her shoulder and an instant confession, not this.

She waits for Chakra to slip into the bed next to her, curl up against her side, still, silent for a moment.

"Bad dream or something worrying you?" Alicia asks. "Chakra?" She strokes her hair, waits, all thoughts of sleep now abandoned, despite her own exhaustion.

"Do I have to go to school tomorrow?"

"Well, no, not tomorrow, tomorrow's Sunday, isn't it?" She's disorientated, must at least have been asleep for a while, Alicia considers, just woken, confused, upset. "And we're going back to Glastonbury tomorrow, to see Ethan, aren't we, remember?"

"But do I have to go when we get back?" Her voice is laced with anxiety. "Mammy?"

"We're going to see. You remember what Helen said, the doctor we met on Monday, right? She's going to meet your teacher this week, and they're going to talk, and then I'm going to go and see her again and we're going to talk about school. And then we'll see. I don't know what she's going to say, Chakra, we're going to have to wait and see. But I'm not seeing Helen again until a week tomorrow, so that means you don't need to worry about school for at least a whole week. And what I think she's probably going to say is we'll have a few more appointments with her, and she'll help us come up with a plan to make school better, okay? So this is just silly, isn't it? It's the middle of the night, Chak, and we're going to be in Glastonbury for a week, you don't need to worry about this now."

Why is it so much easier to be optimistic and reassuring about these things when it's a child she's treating in the ED and not her own daughter?

"But that means I _do_ have to worry about it in a week," Chakra protests, so completely Ethan in that moment. "That just means it won't happen for another week…"

"Hey, listen. I promise you, as your mam, that I am not going to send you back to that school until you feel safe there. Okay? Whatever Helen says. I might send you back for a morning, or something, to see how it goes, but I promise I am not going to keep sending you there if it doesn't get better. Does that make you feel happier?"

"I think so."

"Good. Go back to sleep, sweetheart." Alicia pulls her close, close enough that faintly she can feel her small heart pounding beneath her chest.

"Love you."

"I love you, too. It's okay," she whispers, not entirely sure which one of them she's trying to reassure. "Everything's okay."

Her alarm goes off far too early the next morning, and Alicia groans, slams her hand down onto the sleep button without even glancing over.

Did she sleep, after her middle-of-the-night interruption? Alicia isn't sure. She lay awake for far too long, she knows that; couldn't quite switch off, not until she was satisfied Chakra was sound asleep.

No one ever warned her it was going to be this hard.

Perhaps she should cut her losses, she considers, half-awake, not quite willing to drag herself out of bed, not just yet. Perhaps she should just cut her losses and take Mrs Beauchamp up on her offer now, not even bother waiting for the child psych report to come back next week. Screw it, perhaps she should just sell the house and quit her job, move to a nice uninhabited island in the middle of the ocean somewhere tropical, grow her own vegetables, let Chakra run wild because let's face it, that's what her daughter's school seem to think she's doing anyway, probably what the child psychiatrist is going to conclude too so what does it all even matter if no one is going to believe her…

No, Alicia decides, she can't do that. It wouldn't be fair on Ethan.

Not that she would ever have seriously considered it, of course, not really, as tempting as it might be at times. But even so. Ethan.

It's quite startling, really, the speed at which he seems to have worked his way back into her subconscious planning, despite the distance between them now, still, the physical distance and the emotional, the end result of how he left and the eight years they've spent apart.

She'd take him back tomorrow, if he'd let her.

Alicia suspects she probably would have done all along.

No part of her is sure whether that should terrify her or not.

"Chakra?" Her daughter remains asleep, resistant, arms wrapped tightly around her neck; she couldn't drag herself away and finish packing even if she wanted to. "Chakra, you need to wake up now, sweetheart." She strokes her hair, gentle, waits.

Was she this clingy, before the child psych assessment? Alicia isn't sure, can't think straight when it comes to this. Possibly? It's so hard to tell at the moment. It's definitely gotten worse over the last few months, she knows that, but it's hard to distinguish any further than that. Elle recommended keeping a diary, when she mentioned it to her, despairing in the queue for coffee at the start of a shift, had mentioned that she'd used that tactic when her youngest was a school refuser, that it had helped her to build up a clearer picture than she could have done trying to keep track of it all in her head.

Alicia tried it, at first, but never managed to keep it going longer than a week, decided the email trail would be enough. Perhaps that was the wrong decision, she doesn't know. Everything she does seems to be the wrong decision at the moment. Or perhaps there isn't a right decision, perhaps hoping for the best is all she can do, but that in itself is hard to try to accept.

"Mammy?" Chakra yawns sleepily, clings on tightly, still, eyes closed.

"Hey, you awake? Can you stop suffocating me, Chak, you're like a koala or something."

"Is it morning?"

"Unfortunately, yes. But we're going to see Ethan today, remember? And we're definitely going to persuade him to come to Glastonbury Abbey this time, it's going to be amazing. You feeling better?" Alicia asks gently. "We're going to have a fantastic week, aren't we?"

"Mammy…"

"I know, we didn't have a great night, did we? Come on, you can sleep in the car. I'm going to go and start breakfast, and you need to feed Guinevere and Morgana, don't you?"

"Can we take them with us?"

"No, we can't, sweetheart, Auntie Bea's going to come and feed them for you again, we talked about this."

"I thought you said we were staying on a farm. Pets must be allowed on farms."

"We're staying in a cottage on a farm, yes, I don't think it's the actual working farm bit. But they… well, they might think Guinevere and Morgana are their rabbits, and we wouldn't want that, would we?"

"Do they keep rabbits to kill them so people can eat them?"

"I'm not sure, but it's probably best we don't risk a mix up, right?" Alicia covers elaborately. This is what Ethan would have called her 'talking to kids' tone, she realises; it's something that he could have, too, of course, he's just lacking the practice. "Auntie Bea took great care of them last time, they'll be much safer with her. We're going to drop them round this time, it'll just be easier for her, she's on nights all week."

"Mammy, is it hypothetical for vegans to stay on farms?"

"Hypocritical. And yes, probably, but I didn't really want to book a hotel room again. And it was the best deal I could get last minute, so we're just going to have to roll with it."

"Can I write Auntie Bea a note to give to her so she'll know that Guinevere likes carrots but Morgana prefers beetroot? I only realised that this week."

"Well, that explains where all my beetroot's been vanishing to, then. Yes, you can write her a note. But after we've finished packing, please." Alicia is yet to quite get over the time she threw the packing together in a rush and somehow managed to leave out socks, ended up driving around the middle of nowhere in the general vicinity of a Northumberland camp site in search of an ASDA with a children's section.

"Okay. Are we seeing Ethan today?"

"I think so. I'm going to text him in a bit, but I don't think he's busy. Why don't you go and get dressed, yeah? I'll call you when breakfast's ready."

Her phone vibrates just as she's trying to construct something vaguely edible out of the leftover fruit she's cleared out the fridge.

 _Ethan: Occurred to me last night, something one of the other patients here said. Is Chakra supposed to be in school this week? Please don't take her out of school for my sake x_

Alicia sighs.

 _I'm not, don't worry. The term dates must be different in Holby. Just got to drop C's rabbits at Bea's and sell her soul to the Catholic church and then we'll be on our way. Can't wait to see you x_

She always did hate lying to him.

"So carry them really carefully, Chak, yeah? Rabbits get frightened really easily, we don't want to startle them. You need to keep their carrier nice and flat."

Alicia leads her daughter up the pathway, rings the doorbell, a little distracted.

She's nervous, and it's not about dropping off Chakra's rabbits at Bea's. Why is she so nervous?

It made sense, last time. It made sense to be nervous when she hadn't seen him for eight years, when she had no idea how he might react, but this time it makes no sense at all.

She wants him back. That's what it boils down to.

All these years, and she still wants him back.

"Auntie Bea!" Chakra's face lights up as the front door swings open.

"Hey, how's my favourite ginger comrade? You are _far_ too happy for this early on a Sunday."

"I'm good, thank you. Thank you for saying you'll look after Guinevere and Morgana."

"You're more than welcome, sweetheart, they're no trouble. And I've fox proofed the garden for them and everything, you're going to love it."

"How do you fox proof a garden?"

"She means she actually bothered to put the bins out this week, instead of living like a student," Alicia teases.

"Your mam's mean, isn't she? Why don't you go and put them on the kitchen table, Chakra, I'll help with their hutch. Ignore the mess."

"She's written you a list of their favourite vegetables," Alicia warns as she and Bea head back towards the car.

"She's hilarious," Bea agrees. "Don't tell her, but I can barely tell them apart."

"Oh, me neither. It's something about the ears, apparently. She has told me, but I still can't see it. This thing's heavier than it looks, by the way…"

"Nothing compared to patients. You okay?" Bea places her hand on Alicia's shoulder, rabbit hutch in the boot of the car momentarily forgotten. "Hey, I thought you were looking forward to this."

"Yeah, I was… I don't know." Alicia runs her hands through her hair, lost, so uncertain what she even wants to say. "I don't know what to do to help him, Bea. I don't know if I'm enough, I don't know if I can ever be enough…"

"Hey. Hey, listen. Don't you ever say that again, okay? Don't you ever even think that. He's lucky to have you, Alicia. And if he's got any sense, he'll know that. You only need to be you. I think just seeing you, having you in his life again will help him. But take it slow, alright? Don't let him break your heart, because I'm not picking you up off the floor again," she jokes gently.

Alicia smiles weakly. "Thank you."

"Hey, that's what friends are for, right? You can call me any time, I mean it."

"I know. Thank you."

"Stop thanking me. I'm saying that because you're my friend, not because I want your gratitude. Although you definitely owe me a drink for rabbit baby-sitting duty, by the way."

"Oh, I owe you more than one for this, I really do." She sighs. "This isn't sustainable. I know this isn't sustainable. I can't move down there, my whole life would fall apart without you, and Elle, and Charlie and Duffy, and me mam… I couldn't move, it only worked in Newcastle because it was civilised hours…."

"Then you're just going to have to persuade Ethan to come back to Holby, aren't you?" says Bea, moving to grip one end of the rabbit hutch.

"Well, I'd have to persuade him out of Glastonbury first, and before that I'd have to persuade him out of his room, never mind the clinic."

"Then you work on that first part this time, okay, and you take it from there." Bea props the side gate open with her foot, the overgrown jungle of her back garden coming into view. "Baby steps. I'll tell Mrs Beauchamp I'm willing to donate my annual leave if it comes to it, and…"

"Bea, no, I can't ask you to do that."

"You're not asking, I'm offering. Okay, I guess if we put it here-ish? Chak? Chak, do you want to come and approve this for us?"

Alicia passes through the rest of the morning in something of a daze; hands over the rabbit food, practically drags Chakra away from Bea's house (sometimes Alicia wonders if 'Auntie Bea' is preferable to her), daydreams her way through Sunday mass in the name of a secondary school place she can't even see her daughter making it to just now, grips her hand tightly as they walk back to the car. "Chakra? You know I love you, sweetheart, don't you?"

"I love you too."

No one ever warns you, Alicia ponders absentmindedly. When you have children, no one ever warns you of their never-failing ability to melt your heart.

"I mean it. I love you more than anything else in the world, and I never want you to forget that, okay? You know you can talk to me about anything, don't you?"

"I know." Chakra breaks away from her, pulls the car door open.

"Good. Because we're going to be stuck in here with each other for at least three hours, if not four." She sighs.

"I thought you hated driving long distances."

"Oh, I do, but I think we stand a much better chance of convincing Ethan to come out with us if we have a car down there."

"Do you think he will this time? Come out with us, I mean?"

"I don't know," Alicia tells her honestly. "I don't know, sweetheart, we're going to have to see." She hands over her phone, checks the rear-view mirror. "Do you want to choose some music?"

"Anything?"

"Anything already on my phone, I'm not giving you my iTunes password," she warns.

"Okay." She's silent for a moment, scrolling, and then the Bluetooth kicks in, gentle, folk, soft lyrics, weird backing music, nothing Alicia recognises.

"Have you worked out my iTunes password?"

"No, Kerry the receptionist at the Avalon Clinic put it on your phone for me, last time you and Ethan were talking and I was with her. You left me with your bag in case I wanted my book, remember?"

"Right…"

"Kerry said I'd like it. It's a Canadian lady called Heather Dale, she writes songs about King Arthur and Avalon."

"You know, I'm not so sure I like Kerry anymore, I think she sounds like a bad influence."

"This one's about Tristan and Iseult, Tristan is one of King Arthur's knights and Iseult is the woman he falls in love with because they drink a magic poison, he has to go to Ireland to bring her back to Britain so she can marry another man, and that makes him really sad, and then he's wounded in battle, and Iseult is the only one who can save him, but by the time she gets to him he's already dead, so then she dies of a broken heart so she can be with him forever."

"That's… cheery, isn't it? Wow, you are literally a walking King Arthur encyclopaedia. I'll make you a deal, yeah? One track of this, one track of Florence and the Machine, or something."

"Don't you like it?"

"Oh, no, I love it," Alicia lies brightly. "It's… different, isn't it? I think Ethan would really, really like this, you should play it for him later. But we don't want to get through the whole thing before we're even out of Holby, do we, that would totally ruin the fun."

"Okay. Mammy? Mammy, can you really die of a broken heart?"

Her eyes are watering before she realises it's happening, unexpected, unpreventable, and she blinks furiously, determined to conceal it. "No, Chak. No, medically, that isn't possible. And it's just as well, really, isn't it?"

"Because otherwise you'd have to work really long hours making all the people with broken hearts better again?"

"... Yep, that's it," Alicia lies, eyes fixed firmly on the road. "That's it exactly."

 **Early update to get us all through the next week, because Chelsea and George aren't on the cast list for tomorrow's episode :(**

 **Thank you as ever to those of you who reviewed the last chapter, you are all wonderful, wonderful people. And a special thank you to PanicPeachPit, whose particularly lovely** **review broke me out of my total mental block with this chapter.**

 **Heather Dale and her King Arthur-inspired music is very much real- Chakra plays Alicia 'Tristan and Iseult' from her album 'May Queen,' which basically tells the story of the love triangle between Tristan, Iseult and Iseult's husband. Iseult of Ireland was also known as Iseult la Belle in the King Arthur legends. No prizes for guessing where my username came from... I am not Heather Dale, her music is just really perfect for this story!**

 **As ever, reviews would be wonderful, please do tell me what you like and what you don't. Your comments really do help me improve as a writer. And one question for you- my original plan when I started writing this was to include a few 'eight years earlier' chapters following Alicia's pregnancy. Would you like to read these, or would you prefer I didn't include them?**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

"Ethan!"

Chakra has run into Ethan's room happily, excited, before Alicia can hold her back and warn her Ethan might not take kindly to her overexcited greeting.

It's incredible the difference a few hours in each other's company has made; because that's all it's been, really, Alicia muses. A little under two weeks ago Chakra was so shy around Ethan that Alicia was struggling to get her in to see him at all, and now, even after a week away, she's apparently so eager to see him that this time, Alicia is worried it's going to be too much for Ethan, that he won't quite know how to react to her sudden enthusiasm, will shrink away from her, uncertain.

"Wow, I don't think anyone's ever been quite this happy to see me. Not for a long time, anyway." Ethan returns her hug, though over her head he catches Alicia's gaze, his expression rather touched and just a little panicked.

In his defence, Alicia reasons, he never was great with children, back at the ED.

It's going to take him a little more than a few days with them and a week alone to digest it all to get his head around having a child and working out how to talk to her.

His expression screams out for help, mildly, but lacking confidence, waiting for her to intervene, and perhaps it's unfair of her, but Alicia has no plans to give him that, not just yet.

The truth is, he's managing just fine without her intervention. He just isn't confident enough to realise it for himself, and he never will if she doesn't let him.

"Have you had a good week off school?" Ethan asks her, clearly clutching at straws, starting with the basics.

"It's your school holidays at the moment, isn't it Chakra?" Alicia prompts her quickly.

Technically, she supposes, it isn't quite a lie if she phrases it like that, not really.

Ethan really doesn't need to know any more than that, not now, not yet. She's cautious, knows she has a tendency to overshare anyway, to trust too quickly, knows that if she doesn't hold herself back she's going to be spilling out every worry motherhood has ever brought her to him and perhaps she'll scare him away, but even if she doesn't, if this doesn't work out between them she'll have opened up her heart to him all over again and it will be so painfully hard to let him go, and she can't go through that, not again, not after it almost destroyed her last time.

"It's been good." Chakra glances across at her for a moment, pauses, turns back to Ethan. "Auntie Bea and I made volcanoes out of baking soda and we went to a trampoline park, and I went to work with Mammy and Auntie Bea let me watch her reduce a patient's elbow but then Mrs Beauchamp shouted at her so I had to go back to the admin station, and then Mammy had to work all night so Nana came for a sleepover, and Mammy and I started watching Merlin, it's a TV show about King Arthur, and we took my rabbits to the vets."

"Wow, it sounds like you've been busy." It's rather endearing, Alicia decides, or maybe it's the kind of thing that would only be endearing to her, her daughter and her… her daughter's father- that's the only way she knows how to describe their relationship just now, it's too complicated to try to make sense of any other way- trying to work out how to be at peace in each other's company.

They've come a long way since that first encounter two weeks ago, but it's clear Ethan still doesn't quite know how to respond to her matter-of-fact babbling, the way only children do.

"Guinevere had an ear infection, but we took her to the vet, and I think she's feeling much better now."

"Guinevere's her rabbit," Alicia explains. "She's having a major King Arthur phase."

"And her sister's called Morgana."

"Really? Those are great names for rabbits."

"Thank you. Auntie Bea's looking after them for me, she promised me she would keep all the foxes out of the garden, so they don't eat them."

"That's very nice of her. So does Auntie Bea still work with Ali- with your mum?"

"Yes, and she used to live with us, but I was a baby then so I don't remember it. And then she used to come for dinner lots, and I do remember that, but then Mammy taught her to cook and we moved to Newcastle."

She's been so worried about all this, the little things, filling in the missing pieces of the last eight years. But maybe this is the solution, maybe all she has to do is hold back and let Chakra do it all.

"Bea came back from her F2 placement soon after… you know." Alicia curses herself as she utters those words; could she really not have come up with a better way of putting it? Perhaps she needs to just keep out of it, leave it all to Chakra. "She moved back in with me, it made sense…"

Why does she feel as though she has to justify herself to him, her every decision in his absence?

"No, no, of course, I understand," Ethan covers quickly. "I mean, I wasn't coming back, was I?"

There's an awkward silence.

There's nothing she can say. Nothing she can possibly say could make him feel better in that moment, because to tell him it's alright would be a total, outright lie, and both of them know it.

"Can I show Ethan my photos, Mammy?"

"What? Yes, okay… they're in my handbag…"

She's lost her focus again, distracted, present in this moment physically and yet her mind is lost in a time long ago, Ethan gone, relatively recently gone, in fact, too recent to take it in, to accept it, Ethan gone and a tiny baby to take care of, discharged from hospital unexpectedly soon and too small, too fragile, clingy, noisy… downright terrifying…

Chakra has rummaged around in the depths of her handbag and positioned herself beside Ethan's chair, photo album in hand, before Alicia has regained her grasp on reality.

"She's made you a photo album," Alicia explains. "It's for you, I've made copies of all these, you can keep it."

"Oh wow, is that you, Chakra? You look so much like your mum in these."

Chakra looks over at Alicia, shy, silent.

"You get that a lot, don't you?" Alicia tries.

She's not quite sure how she's supposed to fit into this. Does she hold back, let them work this out for themselves and lurk, ready to step in if needed, or does she actively engage, risk them both falling back to interacting through her because it's easier, familiar, less intimidating?

"That was when I was born. I had exomphalos."

"I know, your mum told me. That's a very big word, isn't it?"

"It means all my organs were outside my body. But they aren't anymore, now I just have lots of scars." She screws up her face, unimpressed.

"Hey, all the best people have lots of scars. If you'd told me these were photos of your mum, I think I would have believed you. And is this…?"

"That's in India."

"India? Wow, I think you were better travelled at… at what, aged three, than I am now."

She giggles. "Mammy said she asked you once where you'd go if you could go anywhere in the world, and she was thinking Alaska, but you said Falmouth."

"I probably did, didn't I? There's nothing wrong with Falmouth. I just don't like flying very much, I'd rather not if I can avoid it. Do you know where Falmouth is?"

"Somewhere cold and wet?"

He laughs. "Close enough. It's in Cornwall. I'm sure we could find you some King Arthur history in Cornwall."

"I think people used to think King Arthur was born in a castle in Cornwall, but then archaeologists realised it wasn't true. Mammy found a documentary on YouTube."

"Well, you're the expert, maybe not then. I reckon you'd be an amazing archaeologist."

"I don't know, because I want to be a doctor, too. But maybe I could do both."

"Of course you could, if you wanted to." Ethan turns the pages, pensive. "You know about your Uncle Cal, don't you? Uncle Cal played football, too."

"I think that's probably why she's insisted on putting those photos in there," Alicia tells him. "She only lasted a couple of months before she convinced me to let her try gym instead. So now she just uses all my furniture for stretching practice." She glares over at her daughter, now climbing onto the arm of Ethan's chair, mock disapproval.

"I didn't like it because we had to attack people, and I'm terrible at attacking peop"

He smiles. "I think you mean tackling, right? I was terrible at tackling people too, too apologetic. I preferred reading, I used to pretend to lose my PE kit every week so I didn't have to freeze to death on the school field in winter. I probably shouldn't tell you that, should I?"

"I like reading too. But I like running. And I don't mind the cold. I just don't like when you have to get the ball off people."

"No, no… very sensible," Ethan agrees. "So when you said gymnastics, I thought you meant like on the Olympics."

"This is in the Olympics too, but this is rhythmic gymnastics. It's like ballet, and we have balls and ribbons and hoops, and ropes, and clubs, but I can't do clubs yet, and we call them apparatus, instead of bars and stuff. And you dance with them, and you have music, and you have to throw them in the air and catch them, and you have to make it look easy, even though it's really hard." She's back to seven-year-old-speech now, babbling, matter-of-fact, Ethan watching her as though a little mesmerised, that new parent in awe of small offspring moment experienced a whole seven years later than planned, and just a little irrationally afraid of her, still not comfortable with the undivided attention of a small human, whether she's his small human or not. "That's ribbon."

"I can see that. You have incredible balance."

"Auntie Elle took these ones, she's a really good photographer. She says it's because she's been to so many sports events with her kids, and so she's had a lot of practice. You have to try not to get knots in the ribbon, or drop the ball. Ball's really hard, because it bounces, and then you have to run after it, but your music keeps going. They didn't have normal gymnastics when we moved back to Holby, so I had to switch."

"I don't think you don't do anything normal, do you, Chak?" Alicia teases. "I think you're practically allergic to it, in fact." She catches Ethan's gaze across the room, a brief moment of recognition, acknowledgement between them, because now, of course it's all so clear.

She has ended up with the eccentric, quietly strong-willed child she has because Chakra is Ethan's daughter, too.

She's not quite sure how she never made that connection before.

"But I prefer this kind of gym anyway, because it's like ballet, and Mammy wouldn't let me do ballet when we lived in Newcastle because she said it was too girly."

"That was before I gave in. She can be surprisingly persuasive."

"Does that mean if I keep asking, you'll let me do work experience with you in resus?"

"No, it doesn't, I've told you, that one's non-negotiable. You can, but when you're sixteen, if you're applying to medical school, and if you think that's unfair you can take it up with Mrs Beauchamp, okay? That one's on you."

"Ethan, was Mrs Beauchamp always scary when you worked with Mammy, too?"

"Oh, terrifying. Completely terrifying." He moves on, turns the pages again. "And that's… Nana? Right?" Ethan looks over to Alicia, uncertain, double checking his grandparent terminology.

"That was last Christmas. And that one's Granddad and Martin. We have to visit Nana and then Granddad and Martin, or Granddad and Martin and then Nana, if they both come to our house at the same time they just shout at each other." Chakra frowns, glances between the two of them with something Alicia can't quite place- suspicion, perhaps- etched across her features. "Did you used to shout at each other?"

"What? No, Chak, no, nothing like that," Alicia tells her quickly, suddenly conscious of the guilt in Ethan's eyes. "I mean, yes, we shouted at each other sometimes, but only about little things, everyone does that. Nothing like Nana and Granddad."

Chakra nods, seemingly satisfied. "Do you have any family?" she asks Ethan, and Alicia cringes, curses herself for not briefing her daughter on this beforehand.

"…No." There's a pause, before Ethan replies, and Alicia can't quite tell whether Chakra has unintentionally upset him or not. "No, not anymore. My mum… your other grandmother, I guess, she died a long time ago, before you were born, and so did my brother. Your uncle Cal."

Chakra nods solemnly, blinks.

"You have us," she says.

It's not that simple, of course. It's anything but that simple; eight years of living separate lives, all the pain and upset and everything left unsaid when he packed his bags and walked out all those years ago, eight years of damage and now it's so hard to work out where to start again, _how_ to start, whether they even still can.

It's not that simple to Alicia, at least, and she imagines Ethan feels similarly.

And yet somehow, in that moment, she could almost believe that Chakra is right, and maybe, just maybe, it could be, if she and Ethan both wanted it.

"Yes." Ethan's voice waivers, shy, uncertain, touched. "Yes, yes, I have you."

"Mammy's taking me to Glastonbury Abbey tomorrow," Chakra tells him, smiles pleadingly. "We're finally going. It's where King Arthur's buried, except it's probably not really him, it said so in the documentary we watched, but you can see where the monks who used to live there thought King Arthur and Guinevere were buried. And there's a tree, and it's supposed to have grown from a staff that belonged to Joseph of somewhere with a long name, and he was Jesus's uncle. I'm not sure if that's true either," she ponders. "But it's supposed to be really interesting. Kerry who works at reception said she likes it there. You can come with us."

"Oh…" Ethan frowns, looks to Alicia, that same, pleading look his daughter is giving him, Alicia realises; her face, her miniature, but somehow still Ethan's mannerisms, Ethan's expressions. "I don't know if that's the best idea, Chakra."

"Why?"

"Well… I'm not very mobile, because of my illness. I'm very slow, you'd probably get very bored, or… I'd have to bring my wheelchair, you see, and that isn't very fair on your mum…"

"Ethan, you know I don't mind," Alicia tells him firmly. "We've already had this conversation, multiple times. I've told you, it's not an issue, it's not like I don't push wheelchairs all the time at work, you're not exactly heavy compared to half my patients. That isn't an issue."

"Mammy drove down here because she thought it would be easier for you to come out with us that way. And Mammy _hates_ driving long distances."

Is it a little selfish that she did consider talking to Chakra before they headed in to see Ethan, warning her that it wouldn't be fair to keep nagging Ethan, and then thought better of it?

No, Alicia decides, it isn't. Probably not, anyway.

She's his daughter, after all. If he wants to be her father, this is all part of what he's signing up for.

"Oh…" Ethan avoids Alicia's gaze, awkward, shifts. "Yes… yes, I remember. But you wouldn't want me to come with you…"

"Yes, I do," Chakra protests.

He smiles sadly. "Well, yes… that's very kind of you to say. Thank you. But I'd be very slow, I'd probably have to keep stopping."

"We can keep stopping together? Mammy always tells me I'm too slow because I keep stopping too, but that's so I can read the guidebook. Mammy reads the guidebooks really quickly and she misses out all the interesting stuff."

"You don't give up, do you?"

"No."

She's close. She's so close; Alicia can see it in Ethan's face, the cracks beginning to show.

"No, I figured you wouldn't."

"Why?"

"Because your mum never gives up either, does she?" He's reminiscing now, nostalgic, and Alicia finds herself wondering whether it's the same moments for him, the same moments he keeps replaying in his head, too, those last few weeks together.

"Okay." Ethan's voice is almost a little afraid, anxious. "Okay. As long as you're sure you don't mind me slowing you down."

 **I don't like this chapter at all, but I've also reached the point where I can't play** **around** **with it anymore, so I hope you like it more than I do! Most of you seem to want an eight years earlier chapter, so I think it's going to be that one next and then back to this storyline, please let me know if you would prefer otherwise, I will take it into consideration!**

 **I know I say this every time, but you are honestly the most supportive group of readers I have ever written for, and I have written** **fanfiction** **for too many fandoms over the years (most of it is now deleted!). I honestly, truly, did not think anyone would be interested in reading this, and I am completely over the moon every time you guys prove me wrong, and you all leave the best reviews. THANK YOU!**

 **Special thank** **yous** **go to 20BlueRoses and PanicPeachPit for your kind words about Chakra, it is honestly the most nerve-wracking thing posting anything with an OC in it, so I am so glad you're enjoying it.** **One** **of** **the many** **things I really wanted to do with this when I came up with the idea of splitting Alicia and Ethan up and having them find each other again was essentially to give Alicia a mini Ethan personality wise to parent alone, because she and Ethan are so different and it's such an interesting dynamic to explore.**

 **I have to apologise for the vegans on the farm comment in the last chapter- when I first started writing this I was completely convinced Alicia was vegan on Casualty. I think I've actually confused her with Chelsea in real life, but by the time I realised it was too established in the dialogue to pull it out, so I've had to just go with it. I promise I am not trying to push an agenda on you, I thought it was part of the show!**

 **Please do keep reviewing, I love all your feedback, and as ever, I take requests if I can make them work with what I have planned :)**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	10. Chapter 10

**So just a few things you need to know before you read this chapter- mostly medical jargon!**

 **Amniocentesis is a procedure used to test for various diseases and defects in an unborn baby. It involves inserting a needle into the uterus and extracting amniotic fluid, which contains cells from the baby. The sample is then tested in a lab- for Huntington's Disease, in Alicia and Ethan's case. A positive test result indicates that the baby has inherited the condition, and will develop Huntington's at some point in their lifetime. There are various ways of doing this kind of testing- given Ethan already** **knows he has Huntington's Disease on the show, it would almost certainly be prenatal diagnosis if this was an actual storyline. Prenatal diagnosis is used when it's already known that one of the baby's parents has Huntington's Disease, there are other tests available if the parent at risk doesn't want to know their own status.**

 **A really cruel twist of prenatal testing for Huntington's is that usually, the test won't be offered unless the parents are certain they will terminate should the baby test positive. It's all to do with the right not to know, as many people who know they are at risk of Huntington's prefer not to have the test done, and obviously by going ahead with the test, you're denying a baby with Huntington's disease that choice. Usually the parents have to go through genetics counselling before opting for a prenatal test.**

 **On a non-medical jargon note, I know the last episode had Ruby and Gem moving in with Alicia, but I already had Bea living there at this point so it was one or the other- I'm sorry!**

 **I'm planning to do a few chapters like this not entirely in chronological order (as long as you don't hate this one!), so if this isn't the scene you were hoping for, fear not, it is probably coming soon! Although equally, if there is something you really want to see, feel free to let me know in the reviews.**

 **And finally, I think some of you have already picked up on the fact that Ethan has chosen to lock himself away incredibly prematurely. If you're paying really close attention, most of the answers are in this chapter somewhere...**

 **Chapter 10**

 ** _20 weeks_**

Alicia is awake long before her alarm sounds. Unimpressed, she turns over, awkwardly, not yet used to this, slams her hand down on top of the alarm clock, shivers, blinks, part of her desperate to just get this over with and her of her longing to just stay here a little longer, wait for sleep that she knows won't come.

It's cold. She's freezing, shivers; the heating kicked in several hours ago, experience has taught her that old houses like this take forever to heat, but still it's not quite enough to combat the late February chill.

It's not enough to compensate for the cold, empty space on the other side of the bed, the lack of his body heat beside her.

How can it be that she got used to him being here with her in a matter of moments, that he slotted into her perception of normal as though he had slept beside her always, and yet now that he's gone, she just can't adjust to it?

"Alicia? Alicia, I've made you coffee, it's decaff, I thought you'd want to save the caffeine for work. I'll leave it out here for you, okay? Can I get you anything else, breakfast maybe? I think we've got…"

"It's fine, Ruby. Thank you. I'll… I'll be down in a minute, okay?"

"Okay." She can hear the concern in Ruby's voice, knows instinctively that there is going to be breakfast waiting for her downstairs whether she likes it or not, breakfast she feels far too sick to struggle her way through, and it isn't morning sickness. "I'll drive you and Bea in this morning. I'm off today, but I've got no plans, you can just drop me a text whenever you want me to come and pick you up."

Awkwardly, heavily, Alicia drags herself out of bed, shivers, wraps a blanket around her shoulders, pads over to the door, pulls it open.

She must look a total mess, but she's beyond caring.

Her housemates have seen her looking far worse than this over the last few weeks, she figures.

"You don't have to do that, Ruby." Ruby stands in the doorway, already dressed, aforementioned mug of coffee in her hands. "I'm on a ten-hour shift today, anyway, I just…"

"Yes, but if it's… if it's bad news, Mrs Beauchamp isn't going to make you stay and finish your shift, is she?" She presses the mug of coffee into Alicia's hands gently.

"No, I need to… I just want to work, I need the distraction… I won't get the results for another two weeks, anyway…"

"Okay. Okay, but if you change your mind, the offer still stands, alright? Just text me. I'd get in the shower fast, if I were you. You don't want to wait for Bea, she'll drain all the hot water. I'm ready to go whenever you and Bea are, I'll just be downstairs." She turns, heads away.

"Ruby?" Alicia wraps her hands around the mug, savouring the warmth. "Thank you. I know I've been…"

"… Under a lot of pressure, hormones all over the place and understandably stressed out with everything that's going on," Ruby finishes for her. "I know. It's okay. I understand. I'll be downstairs if you need me."

She takes Ruby's advice, showers, avoids the mirror until she's dressed, jeans that she can still just about fit into and an oversized jumper, hides.

She isn't stupid. She knows everyone at work has been expecting an announcement from her for the last month, because hospital scrubs aren't exactly forgiving, knows that the only reasons no one has said anything outright are her awful moods, her snappiness whenever any of them have so much as hinted, and Mrs Beauchamp's hawk-like watch, her impressive ability to home in for attack the moment anyone so much as stares (how does she know? Every single time, how does she know?), ruthless, defensive, startlingly effective at shutting down the ED gossip mill.

And, of course, the elephant in the room. The name crossed off the staff rota, the constant locums, the consultancy vacancy currently being advertised.

They've tried, of course. Admittedly, more delicately than they would have, were it not for the events of the past few weeks. Robyn keeps inviting her round for dinner- and Robyn has made clear enough what she thinks of Alicia's post-Eddie ambulance crash vegan stance and discovery of yoga and meditation, spiritual rebirth or whatever she keeps calling it, that Alicia knows she wouldn't be going out of her way offering to make her dinner unless she was worried- as though she believes a few hours in the presence of Charlotte will draw it all out of her, make her realise single motherhood after a traumatic, still-raw split isn't doomed to disaster and heartbreak. (If only that was all she had to worry about with this… she can't even use that word.) And Elle and Duffy keep taking her to one side and asking her if she wants to talk about anything, all knowing smiles, and Alicia knows they mean well but she just can't stand it, pushes them away each time, shuts down. It's Noel, Louise and Gem, really, the ones who just won't let it go, keep hinting, she's sure Noel must have some kind of bet going on it and she just can't stand it, she's sick of the way they keep looking at her.

She just wants them all to ignore it. Is that really too much to ask? It's her life, her body, it doesn't affect them, of course they've worked it out but she just wants them to pretend they haven't noticed, she _needs_ them to pretend, to ignore it.

It's only two more weeks. Two more weeks and either she'll tell them all or she'll have a couple of weeks off and when she's back it will be obvious it's no longer an issue, and they can assume what they like after that, she doesn't care, but at least she knows they won't ask any questions.

And it will be obvious beyond obvious by two weeks' time, Alicia knows that. It's obvious enough now, once she's on shift; she knows they're all only wondering why she's choosing to ignore it still, when it's so blatantly clear. That's only going to get worse in another two weeks, but she can't, she can't address it, not now, not yet.

This is damage control, pure and simple. There's no other way of putting it. She can't allow herself to get attached, not with the odds as they are, not when she knows this is going to destroy her if it goes the way Ethan is so convinced it will.

Ethan…

Alicia reaches for her phone, sighs, exhausted, sick of it all.

There's no point doing this, she reminds herself, types out a message. There's absolutely no point, it will go ignored like all the rest of them, radio silence.

He's gone, and there's no getting him back. She knows that, really.

She suspects he's shut his phone down, either that or he's blocked her, blocked them all, or he's just not reading her messages, deleting them the moment they come through, doesn't want to know.

There's no point; whatever it is, he isn't going to respond.

There's no point in trying, but she just can't let him go.

 _Don't know if you got my last message. Prenatal diagnosis is today, 12pm. Should be two weeks for results._ She pauses, hesitates, so lost, so unsure what to say.

The truth, Alicia supposes.

There's nothing else left to say.

 _I would really like you to be there. Please? It's all forgiven, Ethan. I just want you there._ She presses send quickly, before she can change her mind.

 _I don't know if I can do this on my own_ , she wants to tell him. And yet that won't do any good.

He's in a bad enough place as it is, she figures. Dumping more pressure and responsibility on him is only going to scare him away forever, however badly she needs him.

Is two texts too many? Alicia wonders. She always does this, fires off the first one quickly, before she can bottle out, and then remembers all the things she should have said.

 _I'm telling them I don't want to know anything today. There won't be an ultrasound or anything, you don't have to worry about getting attached. It's just going to be the amniocentesis procedure, nothing else._

It won't make a difference. Deep down, Alicia knows it won't make a difference, but she just can't get her head around it.

"Alicia, you need to eat." Bea eyes her worriedly across the kitchen table. "I know you're nervous, and I get it, I really do, but you can't go for two weeks like this, it isn't good for…" She trails off at the death glare Alicia shoots her moodily, daring her to address it, the other elephant in the room.

It's different at home, of course. Bea and Ruby both know; there was no point trying to hide it from them, and she needed them, besides that, needed someone to confide in. At yet at the same time, they know how she wants to do this, that it's not to be mentioned unless absolutely necessary, to be ignored, precisely where the line falls, the line that probably makes no sense at all outside Alicia's head but it's the only way she knows how to cope with this.

Any direct reference to _that_ is strictly off limits. For now, at least.

"It's not going to do you any good," Bea finishes at last. "Listen, do you want one of us to come with you, later? I'm sure Mrs Beauchamp will let me take my lunch with you, or Ruby could…"

Alicia shakes her head. "It's fine. I'll be fine. It's only the procedure, it's not like…" she shudders. "It's fine." She tips the remains of the breakfast Ruby made her into the bin, sighs, gathers her jumper at the small of her back. "Do I look huge?" she moans.

Bea shrugs. "My obs and gyno placement was a while back, but if anything, I think you look pretty small for twenty weeks."

"Well, I feel bloody huge." She sighs again, frustrated.

"Did you sleep last night?"

"What do you think?" Alicia snaps. "Sorry, I just…"

"Hey, I know," Bea tells her softly. "You don't have to apologise."

"No, but I do, I've just… I can't even blame the hormones, my head's just such a mess…" Her eyes are flooding with tears again before she's quite realised it's coming; she hates this.

"Hey, hey come on, come here." Bea pulls her into a hug, holds her close. "It's alright. We're going to get you through this, okay? Whatever happens."

Alicia doesn't have the energy to tell her she can't allow herself to believe her.

They're silent, all three of them, on the way to the ED. There's a sense of impending doom, somehow, and perhaps it's Ethan, Ethan and his adamant belief that this is all going to end in heartbreak, Ethan…

All of her thoughts seem to come back to Ethan, somehow.

She misses him. She misses him so much it hurts, and she doesn't know how to cope with it.

"Morning, Dr Kinsella. Dr Munroe, you sure there isn't something you'd like to…"

"Leave it, Noel!" Alicia hisses angrily. "Did no one ever teach you not to comment on women's weight?" She storms into the staff locker room before Bea can catch her, grabs her scrubs, locks herself in the closest cubicle.

"Alicia?" Bea calls. "Alicia, are you in here? Ignore him, okay, he's an idiot, I've told him to drop it, and believe me, the look on his face, he won't be bothering you again today. I told him he's not funny. Alicia?"

"I'm okay," she calls. "Thank you. I'm okay, I'll be out in a minute."

She closes her eyes, pulls off her jumper, keeps them firmly closed until she's changed into her scrubs.

It's denial. She knows it's denial, but knowing it doesn't make it any better. She can't bear to look, it's all just a constant reminder of this utter hell, and perhaps she resents it, in a strange sort of way, because she and Ethan were just fine until she told him, and then it was though all hell broke loose.

She should probably do something about it, Alicia reasons, but just now, she doesn't see the point, not when it could all be over in two weeks, anyway.

And if it isn't, perhaps that will make her feel differently.

"I think Mrs Beauchamp wants to see you in her office," Bea tells her, as Alicia unlocks the cubicle door. "She said she wasn't expecting you in work today…"

"Yeah, well, sitting at home beforehand would have been worse, I just want to keep busy." She drapes her stethoscope around her neck, closes her locker. "I'm fine. I'll be fine."

"Alicia? Alicia, come in. Take a seat."

She hovers awkwardly in the doorway, stubborn. "I'm fine, Mrs Beauchamp, I just want to work…"

"Well, yes, I gathered that. I'm not going to tell you to go home, Alicia, you can sit down."

"My shift's already started…"

"And there's a patient in paeds I want you to see to, but that can wait, it's a minor. Low impact RTC, nine-year-old boy, he seems fine but I want him examined before the mother's discharged. How are you feeling?" she asks gently. "Do you want to talk?"

Alicia shakes her head. "Not really. I just want to know, either way…"

This has become something of a regular occurrence lately, these counselling sessions in Mrs Beauchamp's office.

"I know, I know." Mrs Beauchamp smiles sympathetically. "Remind me, is it two weeks for results?"

She nods weakly. "It feels like a lifetime already."

"I know, it will. And have you heard anything from Ethan?"

She shakes her head, bites her lip, determined not to cry. "I've tried calling him, again, I've texted him, if he's been reading his messages, he knows it's today. I don't know what else I can do…"

"There's nothing else you can do, Alicia. You need to remember that, okay? There's only so much you can do for Ethan, if he doesn't want to be helped, he doesn't want to be helped. You need to be focusing on yourself for now, it's important…"

"I know, I know, I don't want to hear it."

"Alicia…"

"There's no point. I don't want to get attached when there's a fifty percent chance I'm going to have to… I can't even say it."

"I understand. But there's still a fifty percent chance that it'll be good news, and in that case…"

"Well, I've given up smoking, haven't I, so as long as it's not carrying a death sentence, I think it'll be fine."

Mrs Beauchamp sighs. "Alright. Alright, but I want you on minors this morning. Have you got someone to take you home after?"

"I'm finishing my shift, I'm fine…"

"Right, and have you seen an amniocentesis test performed before?"

Alicia shakes her head.

"No? No, but you know they're going to insert a needle into your uterus, right? You know there's a small risk of miscarriage, that most women experience cramping after the procedure? You need to go home and rest, Alicia. I don't want to see you anywhere near the ED until tomorrow morning."

Alicia nods, defeated. "I can call Ruby, she's off today."

"Good. Call her now, before you start. And have you decided what you want today? It's your first scan, isn't it? They can do an anomaly scan, at twenty weeks, they can tell you…"

"I don't want the scan. I don't want an ultrasound, I don't want any of it. I don't want to know, not in case…" she trails off, falters, wipes her eyes.

"Here." Mrs Beauchamp pushes a box of tissues towards her. "I doubt you'll get them to agree to that, Alicia. Obstetrics are just as stretched as we are, you know what it's like, they'll be offering you a phone call and a twenty-five-week check-up if it's good news or counselling and another appointment if it's bad news. They won't schedule you an ultrasound beyond twenty weeks."

Some of her exhaustion, her defeat, must have shown on her face.

"Look, why don't I come up with you? Just to speak to them beforehand, alright? They'll have to do an ultrasound today as part of the procedure, it's standard, but you don't have to watch. And I'll explain, I'll make sure they agree to book you in for a scan once your results are back. Who's your midwife?"

Alicia fidgets awkwardly. "It's on my notes somewhere, I haven't really looked…"

"Of course, you haven't," Mrs Beauchamp sighs. "And you didn't have a sixteen-week appointment with them?"

"It was that week, you know, that week it all happened, I was in this place, I meant to reschedule and I never got round to it," she confesses. "I mean, there's no point, really, is there, I just need to know what I'm doing with it, I know the medicine, and I don't need any of the sentimental stuff unless it's negative. There was no point anyway."

"Right, and you do realise there's more to antenatal appointments than medical explanations and ultrasounds for the sake of sentimental value, don't you? It's important, Alicia… there's no point telling you this now, is there?" she sighs. "Okay. Okay, I'll come up with you, I'll make sure there aren't any problems. Go and call Ruby." She frowns, pauses. "Is there something else?"

She looks down, holds out her forearms for inspection. "I've still got… you remember. Like that. They're going to kick up a fuss about it, I know they are, I haven't got the energy…"

"I'll talk to them. I treated you, after all, I'll explain. You don't need to worry about that, of all things. Now go and call Ruby, alright? I want you out of here as soon as you're finished upstairs."

Alicia struggles through the morning in a daze. She suspects Mrs Beauchamp has her on minors for her own benefit, more than anything, to save herself the paperwork and the picking up the pieces were she to absentmindedly make a total mess of something more serious in resus.

The paeds case she's been assigned is, as it turns out, the most minor of minors she's treated in months, barely even worth admitting. She goes through the motions; obs all fine, the vehicle was moving slowly; she's already had the heads up from Dylan through in the main ED that he suspects the mother is hoping for an insurance claim, trying it on for good measure. (Younger child, eighteen months, discharged almost before they were in through the door.)

"When are you having your baby?" The older child- her patient- eyes her curiously.

"I'm not, just fat," she lies, polite enough, because she doesn't quite have it in her to snap at her paediatrics patients, but firm, shutting the conversation down. She ignores the mother's raised eyebrows. "He's fine, no damage done. I'm happy to discharge him."

Somehow, she survives those next few hours. She knows Mrs Beauchamp keeps her well away from the baby brought in with a high temperature, could have kicked up a fuss when she allocates to Elle instead but in all honesty a part of her is glad, wants nothing to do with it.

Two weeks. Two weeks and this part will all be over, either way.

"Alicia?"

She and Louise are halfway through a teenager with a fractured collarbone when Mrs Beauchamp appears, Bea in tow.

"Nurse Tyler, I need to borrow Dr Munroe," she explains swiftly, authoritative, no room for arguments. "Dr Kinsella can take over here. Dr Munroe, with me, please."

"I'll see you at home, okay?" Bea whispers, squeezes her shoulder. "Be strong."

She follows Mrs Beauchamp out of paeds obediently, ignores Louise's knowing smirk. "Thank you."

"It's alright. Go and get changed, okay? I'll see you back out here."

She hands over NHS referral letter over to Mrs Beauchamp once she returns from the staffroom, drained, defeated, all her dignity well and truly gone, figures if she wants to help, let her.

She hasn't got the energy to be dealing with this, allows herself to be led into the lift like a child, along the corridor on god only knows which floor of the hospital; she wouldn't know, she wasn't paying attention.

She's not entirely convinced she isn't being escorted to this appointment largely because Mrs Beauchamp doesn't trust her to turn up for it.

She barely even registers passing through into Obstetrics, pulled back to reality by Mrs Beauchamp's hands on her shoulders, an attempt at reassuring. "Hi, this is Alicia Munroe, she has an appointment at twelve. With…" she scans the referral letter. Dr Patel and Sister McKay. We're going to need a word with them first, please, before they start. In private."

The receptionist turns back to her computer for a moment. "Dr Munroe? We weren't sure you were going to turn up, you're aware you missed your last appointment? Your first appointment, in fact."

"Yes, she's aware, thank you. She and the father have seen the genetics counsellor, you'll find everything's in order to go ahead with her appointment. So if you could check her in, please, and let us know when they're ready for her."

"I'm sorry, it's just she of all people should really understand, we don't make these appointments for the sake of throwing money away…"

Alicia glances down at the floor awkwardly, nothing to say.

"Yes, and I assume you've just brought up her notes?" Mrs Beauchamp retorts coldly. "Given the circumstances, I think you can spare her the lecture, don't you?"

"What's going on?" One of the cubicle doors swings open, two figures appearing in the doorway.

Mrs Beauchamp is on them in an instant, reading the name badges. "Dr Patel and Sister McKay. I'm Mrs Beauchamp, ED Clinical Lead, this is Alicia Munroe, one of my registrars, I understand she's your next patient. We'll need a word please, if you're ready for her."

Someone must have said yes, or Mrs Beauchamp must have persuaded them to make a start early, because somehow, she's guided into a cubicle, onto an examination table, Mrs Beauchamp talking to the medical staff in the corner.

"… Yes, I appreciate that, but as I just explained to your colleague in reception, the circumstances are all rather difficult, even for a Huntington's case. I assume you've been fully briefed by Genetics? Good, then you'll understand the situation. So I would really appreciate it if you leave her be. She understands, she won't be missing any subsequent appointments. Speaking of which, she doesn't want an ultrasound today, all things considered…"

"You do realise she didn't present until fourteen weeks, she hasn't had an ultrasound at all…"

"No, she hasn't, but another two weeks isn't going to hurt. I'd like you to book her in for an anomaly scan for two weeks' time, please, allow enough time for her results to come back. I know you'll have to go through the introductions, but if you could hold off on everything else until then, too, that would be preferable."

"This isn't a request service, you can't just…"

"So call Hanssen, then. He owes me a favour. Or you can spare us all the trouble and the time wasted and just book her in for two weeks' time now."

"Alright. Alright, but I hope you don't have any more of your staff you're expecting special treatment for."

"No, just Alicia will do, thank you." She stares at them coldly, daring them to challenge her.

"Is that everything?"

"Almost. You'll notice she has some bruising, she was involved in an accident four weeks ago. I treated her in the ED, I can assure you there are no safeguarding concerns. It was a freak accident, stair fall, she fainted. Hypoglycemia. I'm happy to send you over her notes, if you're going to be awkward about it. But she's been thoroughly examined, there's nothing to worry about."

"And you're telling me she still has significant bruising now?" Alicia can hear the suspicion only too clearly.

"It happened in the ED, are you familiar with our department? Large flight of stairs, open, hard landing? Had it been a home fall, yes, I would agree with you. I examined her myself right after it happened, she was kept in for observation. She and the baby are both fine. I believe that's why she missed her last appointment with you, she was an inpatient with us at the time. Obviously, I would have ensured you were informed at the time had I known, but given that was also the week her partner left, I'm sure you can appreciate she was dealing with rather a lot. Like I said, we kept her in for observation in the ED, I can assure you we have it well under control. There's no cause for concern."

"Alright. Alright, if you insist." There's movement, suddenly a woman standing in front of her in a nurse's uniform. "Alicia? My name's Sorcha, I'm going to be your midwife. This is Dr Patel. We're going to get this over with as quickly as we can."

Alicia glances at Mrs Beauchamp, suddenly lost, shaky. "Is it twelve yet?" she pleads.

"Five past," she tells her gently. "I'll tell reception to send him through if he turns up, okay? Do you want me to stay?"

She shakes her head.

"Okay. Okay, I'll see you tomorrow. You know where I am, if you want to talk." And then she's gone, closing the door behind her.

"We're going to get started, then," the midwife explains. "I'm going to have to do an ultrasound to locate your baby, alright? You can look away, if that's what you want."

"It is." Her voice is shaking now, the world falling apart.

"And you understand the implications of prenatal diagnosis, you know that with Huntington's Disease, in the event of a positive test result you're agreeing to terminate?"

Alicia nods weakly.

"Okay. I'm going to need you to lift your top for me, sweetheart. This is going to feel cold, alright? Look away now, look to your left, that's it. This won't take long."

She winces at the sudden chill, does as she's told, looks away, closes her eyes, just in case.

"Do you want to know the sex?"

"No." She shakes her head, frantic.

"Okay. It's okay, relax. Just relax… Okay, it's over, you can look now. I'm going to numb the area, and then Dr Patel is going to make the insertion. You shouldn't feel anything, it'll be over in a few minutes."

She stares, heart racing, eyes fixed on the needle. There's something strangely reassuring about it; perhaps it's the medic in her, something about watching the process. "Is she really that high? It feels like she's crushing my bladder."

"She?" The midwife smiles at her sadly. "I thought you didn't want to know?"

"I don't," Alicia covers quickly. "I don't, I…" she shakes her head. "Never done that before."

"Well, if you change your mind, we can…"

"No. No, I won't, not this time, thank you."

"That's fine. Baby's just here. You haven't felt any movement yet, then?"

She shakes her head. "No, and I'm hoping I won't. Not unless… you know."

"I understand. Alright, sweetheart, we're almost done. Just relax."

It's too much now, her eyes beginning to draw away from the needle, and she closes them, breathes deeply.

"It's over, Alicia," the midwife tells her gently. "Relax, it's over. We're finished."

She pushes herself upright, pulls at her jumper, winces.

"Hey, not so fast. You can rest in here for a bit, okay? Is there someone coming to get you?"

She nods wearily. "My friend's coming."

"Good. You need to go home and rest, take it easy today. Now, some bleeding is normal, as are cramps, but anything excessive and you'll need to come back in. We'll have your results in about two weeks, we'll call you then and we'll take it from there. Do you have any questions?"

"No, I… I think I'm okay."

She's far from okay, but it's nothing they can help her with.

"Hey." Ruby approaches her slowly, Alicia's coat draped over one arm, handbag over the other. "Apparently you're free to go. Alicia?"

Alicia looks up, disorientated, accepts Ruby's hand, helping her off the examination table. "Thank you, for coming to get me. I'm sorry, Mrs Beauchamp said I should…"

"You don't have to apologise," Ruby insists. "It's no trouble. Let's get you home." She leads her out of Obstetrics, back into the lift. "He didn't turn up, then?" she asks quietly.

She shakes her head helplessly. "I knew he wouldn't. Just… wanted to pretend for a while, you know? I just…" she trails off, frowns, hand flies to her abdomen before she realises what she's done.

"You alright?" Ruby worries. "Alicia?"

"I'm fine. It's just… felt weird, that's all, I'm just still on edge, I guess. It's fine, it's just… feels like nerves, I guess."

She refuses to meet Ruby's eyes.

Alicia knows exactly what this is, she isn't stupid.

She just doesn't want to admit it.

 **I think this is the most nerve-wracking chapter I have ever posted, in a lot of ways this felt like writing a completely new story! Thank you as ever to my wonderful reviewers, you guys are just the best and completely the reason I have managed to get this chapter done so quickly, I know it's not the fastest turnaround ever but a LOT of medical research went into this one. I have a couple of questions for you:**

 **1) would you like more chapters from this storyline? They will not be in chronological order- you will see Ethan, don't worry!**

 **2) what would you like the next chapter to be- a return to the 'other' storyline or another chapter from this one?**

 **Let me know in the reviews, I will go with the majority :) and please do let me know whether you like/dislike this one, I have absolutely no idea what you will all make of this and I am terrified!**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	11. Chapter 11

**p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;" align="center"strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"So before you start this, I would just like to say that not only did Alicia have chana masala (aka chickpea curry, aka vegan- I think!) in Saturday's episode, but I also wrote the Auntie Ruby and the tea section of this before that episode aired- you'll see what I mean if you were paying attention. I am not the Casualty writers, honest.**

**Chapter 11**

"Mammy? Mammy?"

Alicia sighs, startled awake by her daughter's panicked plea. "Chakra?" She strains in the darkness, making out her tear-stained face, straight into protective, comforting mode, pulls back the covers, shuffles over. "Oh my goodness, are we doing two nights in a row? This must be a new record, mustn't it? Come on." She waits for Chakra to curl into her side, wraps her arms around her, rubs her back, tries to calm her down. "Shhhh, come on, it's alright."

"Are you angry?"

"What? Of course I'm not angry, sweetheart, why would I be angry?"

"Because I w-woke you u-up again."

"Well, if you'd woken me up for the sake of it I might have been angry, but I'm not going to be angry with you when you're upset, am I? You're silly, aren't you?"

"No."

"Yes, you are. You going to tell me what's wrong?"

"Don't know."

"Don't know what's wrong or don't know if you want to tell me?"

"Don't know what's wrong."

"Well, that's probably just because you're tired, isn't it? Everything always feels worse in the middle of the night."

"I can't sleep." She wraps her arms around Alicia's neck, clings, classic anxiety.

"Have you been awake for a while?"

She nods, head buried in Alicia's chest.

"You do realise you're only seven, right? You have, like, your whole life to be an insomniac. You don't want to start at seven, that's a seriously slippery slope."

"Like you shouldn't start smoking until you're sixteen?"

"No, like you shouldn't start smoking ever."

"You smoke."

"Yes, and that's because I didn't have someone to tell me what a bad idea it was growing up, Nana and Granddad both smoke, don't they? But you don't have that excuse, because I'm going to keep reminding you."

"When did you start?"

"Are we really having this conversation in the middle of the night?" Alicia asks, mock sighing. She's about to shut it down, tell her to go to back to sleep, and then she realises the tears and the tension have stopped. "When I was fourteen. I got in with the wrong crowd at school, wanted to be one of the cool kids. But you have to promise you won't tell Nana and Granddad that, okay? They think I started when I went to med school. And if I ever catch you smoking, you're grounded, you understand? And if you're under sixteen, you're grounded for life."

"Because it's bad for you?"

"Exactly, because it's bad for you. And it costs a bloody fortune."

"Mammy?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't want you to die."

Alicia sighs, plan well and truly backfired. "Well, hopefully, you're stuck with me for a good while yet. Why are you suddenly worrying about that?"

"Isabella's dad had lung cancer, and then he died, when she was a baby. Isabella says you can get lung cancer when you smoke."

"Who's Isabella?"

"She's in year six. She goes to school choir too, at lunchtime."

"Right, okay. Well, you have to smoke properly to get lung cancer from it." Slight simplification, admittedly, but no part of Alicia wants to get into a debate over the various risk factors associated with lung cancer at goodness only knows what time of night. "I've always been more of a stress smoker, really, a couple a month at the most. That isn't going to kill me, okay?"

"But what if, though? Mammy?"

"Alright, listen. I promise you I will quit smoking, if you promise me you're going to stop worrying about absolutely everything and try to sleep. The worrying's my job, I'm your mam, you don't get to worry obsessively until you're at least, I don't know, twenty-four, or something. Do we have a deal?"

Chakra nods, still, limp in her arms.

"Good girl. Go on then, try to sleep."

She's _so_ going to regret that promise come her next difficult shift, but right now, it feels like a small price to pay.

And besides, Alicia tells herself, there's a chance her daughter won't even remember this in the morning.

"Mammy?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

"I love you too, sweetheart. Now go to sleep, okay? I've got you."

Alicia wakes the next morning half expecting to find a text from Ethan on her phone, bottling out, telling her he's thought about it and decided he isn't coming. She yawns, turns off the alarm braces herself for disappointment.

It's ironic, Alicia realises. There's no questioning the fact that Ethan and Chakra are the worriers; she can worry, when the situation warrants it, but Chakra takes it to another level, for a small child, and she gets it from Ethan, that's another connection that Alicia has only just made since finding him again. Ethan and Chakra are the worriers, but right now, she's horribly worried about both of them.

It's exhausting. Alicia has no idea how either of them manage to get anything done.

She formulates a mental list in her head, stretches with her free arm, the one not trapped beneath Chakra's sleeping form, reaches out for her phone.

Persuade Ethan out into the real world again, somehow get through to him, work out what he's so afraid of and fix it, somehow, make him see that he can't keep living like this, that he doesn't have to, that perhaps Huntington's has to dictate how it's all going to end, but it doesn't have to consume his whole life now, not when his symptoms seem still so minor, all things considered, far from life-limiting, not yet.

She knows what he's so afraid of, of course. Deep down, Alicia knows, but that doesn't make it any easier. If anything, it makes it all so much worse, because he left before they could talk about it, before he could come to peace with it all, and now it's been eight years and it's never been spoken of since, eating him alive, she's sure of it, and Alicia doesn't know how to go about trying to fix it without bringing it all up again, risking sending him into a rage, pushing him away again.

She's no idea how the psychological element of his illness has progressed, how reflective his awful outburst that first day was of his usual mood swings nowadays. And it's difficult, because while Alicia has no plans to put to the test her theory that his reaction to Chakra's interruption that day was extreme, panic, more than anything else, fear that Chakra had been brought into the world against his wishes, against everything they had agreed, in his absence, cursed, destined to suffer the same fate he is now, a ticking time bomb, part of her desperately wants some clarity, to know where she stands.

And then there's Chakra. Somehow persuade Chakra to talk about whatever it is that is so clearly troubling her far more heavily than anything should ever trouble a seven-year-old. Preferably before the CAMHS psychiatrist decides it's her parenting that's the problem and she's forced to resort to unleashing Mrs Beauchamp's wrath upon her.

In a way, Chakra is a harder problem to get her head around; it's a fight not to allow it all to consume her in a way it just isn't for Ethan, because as much as it might not feel like it at times, Ethan isn't her problem, not really, not in the same way. She can try to guide him, encourage him out of his self-imposed exile and back out into the land of the living, to enjoy whatever time he might have left, but ultimately, only he can make the decision to do it.

Chakra, on the other hand, is still so young, still entirely her responsibility. Every decision has to be Alicia's, and with that comes a whole new burden, because she feels as though she doesn't know what she's doing with this, as though she could so easily be doing it all wrong and that's terrifying, terrifying that she could be missing something obvious, unintentionally damaging her daughter.

Alicia sighs, presses her palm against her forehead.

She doesn't feel responsible enough to making decisions on behalf of a tiny, fragile human at the best of times.

It wasn't so long before Chakra was born that Cal was killed, after all, that it had all fallen apart between her and Ethan that time around, that she had returned home from France and sworn off men and drink for the year, vowed to grow up.

In some ways, that feels like a lifetime ago now. And yet there are moments like this, running through it all in her head, at a loss, no idea what to do for the best, that Alicia doesn't feel as though she's grown up at all.

She reaches for her phone, checks her lock screen, heart fluttering with anticipation, fear of rejection.

 _Ethan: Are we still on for this afternoon? Chakra is perfectly entitled to change her mind, I won't be offended x_

Alicia sighs, rolls her eyes.

It's so Ethan. She should have seen this coming.

 _Don't be ridiculous_ , she tells him, typing one-handed. _She can't wait to spend time with you._ _We'll pick you up around 1ish? X_

Satisfied she's done all she can, she puts down her phone, brushes her daughter's hair out of her face. "Chak? Chakka? It's morning, sweetheart, are you awake?"

Chakra blinks, yawns sleepily.

"Hey, you going to wake up for me? I'd really like my arm back so I can go and use the shower, please."

She heads off to the bathroom, showers, changes, returns to another message waiting for her.

 _And you're sure you're alright with it? I can probably manage with just my crutches x_

Alicia casts her mind back to those final days together, shudders involuntarily.

 _No, you can't_ , she wants to tell him, but she knows exactly how badly that will go down.

 _I've already told you, not a problem. I don't mind. We both just want to see you, I don't care about that. It's fine. We'll see you later x_

"Where are we going?" Chakra glances out the window, curiously, frowns, groans. "Mammy…"

"Hey, we're going to be five minutes, okay? Ten, tops. Come on. Oh, and you're going to have to move into the back when we go and get Ethan, so if you could clear out the shelf in the door, that would be great."

"I think it's mostly hair pins."

"Oh, is that what you do with them? Do you think maybe, just maybe, you could bring them back into the house every once in a while? Or, even better, pull them all out once you're actually home from gym?"

"Yes, but it always hurts the way you do it."

"Well maybe, if you had your hair cut to a normal length, you wouldn't have that problem. Look, we could cut it to here, like mine? We could do it for your birthday, then you'd look like a really grown up eight-year-old. Okay, okay," Alicia sighs, stands down. "Okay, I give up." She holds out her hand, takes the handful of hair pins, pencils, packs of tissues, assorted chaos from her daughter. "Come on. I promise we're going to be quick. We didn't drive all the way down here just so I could drag you round Tesco."

"What are they?" Chakra peers over Alicia's shoulder, having abandoned the basket she had insisted on carrying only minutes ago at the end of the aisle.

"They're teabags, but they're special ones."

"Why are they special ones?"

"Because they're mostly chamomile, but they've got valerian root in them, too. Valerian root's brilliant, it's completely natural but it helps you sleep, totally knocks you out. I was pretty much dependant on these when I was pregnant with you."

"Why?"

"Because you gave me so many things to worry about," Alicia teases her. "I don't think I'd slept for about a month before Auntie Ruby got me these. Seriously, they're amazing."

"I'm sorry."

"Hey, no, no, no, I was joking, okay? I'm joking, Chak, I wasn't trying to get you to apologise, sweetheart. It's not your fault, is it? So, we'll get you some of these, and we'll see if it works on you as well, shall we?"

"Do they taste like Auntie Ruby's fennel ones?" Chakra frowns, suspicious. "Because Auntie Ruby's fennel ones are disgusting."

"I couldn't agree more. But no, they taste like chamomile, and you like chamomile, right, if Auntie Ruby takes the teabag straight out again? I'm going to do that with these, Auntie Ruby style, okay? I think they'll help you sleep. Although how Auntie Ruby got you hooked on diluted chamomile tea at aged five, I really do not know. I think she must have magic powers, or something."

"I like her green tea ones too, as long as they're the ones with peach and cherry blossom in them. Those are the best ones."

"Well, I'm glad you like them, because that's as much caffeine as you're going to get until you're at least sixteen."

"Her green smoothies are horrible, though."

"Well, even Auntie Ruby's magic powers have their limits sometimes. Let's go, then." Alicia rummages in her handbag for her purse, pulls out a ten-pound note, hands it over. "There you go, you're paying. And I want you to make sure you get me the right change, please. Who needs maths class when you can do your mam's shopping instead."

"Are we still telling Ethan it's the school holidays?"

"Yes, we are, just for now, okay?"

"I thought you said lying was bad and I shouldn't do it."

"Yes. Yes, I did," Alicia agrees. "Right, are you going to put those on the counter? But listen, this isn't lying, it's just being creative with the truth. Alright? And you're right, it's never normally acceptable, but we're only going to do it for a while."

"Why?"

"Well, because… do you want to tell him?"

"No."

"There you go, then, that's why. But lying is never alright unless I tell you it is."

"I thought you said we were just being creative with the truth."

"That's right, we are. Completely different. But still not okay unless I tell you it is." She pauses, waits for the shop assistant, smiles gratefully. "Chakra, what do you say?"

"Thank you."

"Good girl. So we're going to go and get Ethan this afternoon, alright? And then you can tell him everything you know about King Arthur. If you haven't already."

"Why not now?"

"Because I don't think he's left the clinic since before you were born, so we might be a little full on for him if he spent all day with us just now."

"Can we go back to the park with the castle?"

"We can. Hold my hand."

"Why?"

"Because this is a really busy road. For Glastonbury, anyway. And I don't want you to step out without looking, I'm on holiday, no one wants to have to work on holiday."

"I'm _seven_."

"Yep, exactly, you're still my baby. Hand, please."

She obliges, allows Alicia to lead her across the road. "When do I stop being your baby?"

"Well, you're the only one I'm going to have, aren't you, so I think you get to keep that title forever."

"Was I an accident?"

Alicia freezes, taken aback. "What makes you ask that?"

"Charlotte told me she was an accident. She said Robyn was really annoyed with her and told her, and then she cried and told her being an accident isn't a bad thing. But that's why Charlotte's dad wasn't there when she was born. So was I an accident?"

"No, you weren't an accident, sweetheart. You were the best surprise ever."

Chakra pauses. "Doesn't that just mean the same thing?"

"Well, I guess so. And there's nothing wrong with being an accident, some of the best things that happen to us are accidents, aren't they? What I'm trying to say is that you weren't completely unexpected, your dad and I… Ethan… we'd been together for a while. He just wasn't there when you were born because he was so ill by then."

"Like, more ill than he is now?"

"I suppose so, yes. Ill in a different way."

"But he didn't know about me?"

"Well… no, not quite. He did know about you, it wasn't like that. But we thought you were going to be really ill, I've told you this. We weren't sure you were going to… survive. I didn't know you were going to be alright until after he'd gone."

"Couldn't someone at the hospital tell you?"

"Well, yes, they could, do you know what an obstetrician is?"

"No."

"It's a special kind of doctor, they look after babies, but before they're born. So they could tell me, yes, but I had to wait for a while, it's a very complicated test. Listen, you must never, ever think Ethan didn't want you, okay? Believe me, he did. He was just really ill, sweetheart, he was ill and he'd convinced himself you were ill too, and I think he just found that too painful."

Chakra nods, seemingly satisfied. "Was it hard?"

"Hmm?"

"Charlotte's mum said having a baby by yourself is really hard."

"I guess so, but being an adult in general is hard, really. And you were a pretty easy baby, once you came out of hospital. And I wouldn't change you for anything. Come on, then, let's see if we can remember where this park is."

It's rather nervously that Alicia leads Chakra up the path to the Avalon clinic that afternoon, checks her phone obsessively, just in case he's changed his mind.

This is what she's wanted ever since that first visit- or the second visit, at least, after Ethan had recovered from the initial shock, calmed.

This is all she's wanted, and yet now it's finally happening, no part of her feels ready.

She's tried so hard not to romanticise this all in her head. It's not going to be like it was before, a return to life as it was eight years ago plus their daughter, however badly she wants it to be. Too much has happened, both of them have changed, Ethan's illness has progressed, albeit not as violently, destructively, as Alicia had feared.

Where can they even go from here? She can't keep putting her life on hold to visit him, but she can't force him back to Holby, either. This all feels so temporary, still, as though sooner or later she's going to lose him again, unsustainable, no possibility of ever going back to the way things were before, even of a happy ending.

Perhaps it's possible. Maybe, just maybe, there's a way they can make this work, a way that she can't see just yet, a compromise, some way they can be together…

Does he even really want her back?

Her phone vibrates as they head towards the visitor entrance.

 _Ethan: waiting for you in reception. Thought it would be easier x_

"Mammy?"

"Sorry, sorry. Ethan's waiting for us in reception, let's go and find him."

"And then he's coming out with us?"

"Yep, and then he's coming out with us. He hasn't forgotten. Now don't stare, okay?" Alicia whispers, guiding Chakra in through the doors ahead of her. "You're going to make him feel really uncomfortable if you stare, you mustn't."

She sees him the moment they're in through the doors, around the corner to the front desk.

Ethan waits for them in the corner, already sat in a wheelchair, hospital issue, crutches placed carefully behind him, awkward, self-conscious, embarrassed, ashamed, avoids meeting her eyes.

And in that moment, Alicia is more determined than ever to remind him how to live again.

"Hi." She smiles, suddenly strangely shy. "Sorry, I know we're a bit early…"

Ethan shakes his head, tries at eye contact, looks away, smiles faintly. "No, no, it's alright. I was early, too, it's fine."

He's afraid, Alicia realises. He's afraid of her reaction, afraid to see.

"Hi, Ethan."

"Hi, Chakra." He's still awkward, shifts, winces, thinks better of it. "So you remember what we talked about yesterday, right? I'm going to be much, much slower than Ali… than your mum."

"I know. But that's okay. I don't mind. Slow is good, then we get to see everything properly. And Mammy's checked, and if we get tired, there's a café."

"Well, it sounds like you two have thought of everything." Ethan glances at Alicia, pleading, humiliated. "I can't… in this… do you mind…?"

Alicia rolls her eyes at him, light hearted. "Well, yes, I was assuming that, anyway. Of course I don't mind, you don't have to ask, Ethan. It's fine." She moves around to the back of his wheelchair, takes off the breaks, determined to show him that this is normal, new normal, that it's alright. "Chakra, you going to walk next to Ethan?"

 **I am so, so sorry for making you wait so long for this chapter. I have several excuses, it's partly because I had too many ideas for later chapters and had to start writing them down this week, and it got a bit out of control, to the point that I ended up with over 10,000 words written across 5 chapters, and so nothing to actually give you (lesson learnt, I promise I will not be using that technique again!), partly because I had visitors this weekend and partly because I am a total idiot. If you talk to me in the PMs (which you totally should, btw, because you are all lovely, lovely people), you may know that the language I'm using the majority of the time at the moment is my 'other' language, not English, and in that language the word 'in' means 'and.' I was apparently really tired when I wrote most of this chapter, because when I came back to finish it, I found I had used 'in' as 'and' on and off through the whole chapter, so I had to go back and swap them all over. I think I got them all, but if you spot one I missed, please do tell me!**

I am honestly totally overwhelmed and touched by the response to the last chapter. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for all your wonderful reviews of chapter 10, and to every single one of you who has reviewed this story. There are honestly no words. It really does mean the world to me to know so many people are enjoying this, I love reading your feedback.

As ever, reviews would be incredible, please feel free to tell me what you like and what you don't, and anything you would like me to write. (if you told me you would like a particular scene already, it's either being written now, or it's on my list :) ) And thank you again, all of you, for all your kind words. 

-IseultLaBelle


	12. Chapter 12

**I know I said this last time I did one of these chapters, but I really hope you don't hate this one. I know it's a bit dark, but you do need it to make sense of where I'm going later in the present day chapters. Complaints can be registered in the reviews- anonymously or otherwise!**

 **So there is a much bigger hint as to what's really going on between Alicia and Ethan in the present day chapters in this one...**

 **And finally, credit has to go to the Mamma Mia Here We Go Again soundtrack- I wrote most of this to I've Been Waiting for You. I haven't decided if that's ironic or poignant!**

 **Chapter 12**

 ** _21 weeks_**

Alicia arrives for her night shift on edge, tense, hormonal, alone (no Bea to hold her together today; Bea was on the day shift along with Ruby, their paths have barely crossed in the last twenty-four hours), absolutely determined she is not going to cry under any circumstances, that somehow, she is going to isolate herself, block out all emotion, all unwanted comments, struggle her way through this shift.

One more week, give or take. She's not entirely sure when to expect the results, didn't ask, was satisfied with two weeks approximately. She doesn't want to know, in a way, knows better than most that there can be unexpected delays when it comes to lab results, that fixating on a particular day is a bad idea.

She doesn't know if she can do this, and yet at the same time, she knows she doesn't have a choice.

Her heart sinks as she realises the cubicles in the staff locker room are all already occupied, considers waiting, but she's running late for this shift already and no part of her wants to try Mrs Beauchamp's patience, not when she doesn't trust herself not to dissolve into tears at the slightest hint of a confrontation.

It's not the best headspace to be in for a night shift, admittedly.

Sighing, Alicia pulls her scrubs from her locker, slams the door a little too forcefully, closes her eyes, listens for warning signs that someone might be about to enter at any moment, begins.

She was never self-conscious about this before, but this whole hellish situation has changed everything.

Is she supposed to feel so completely uncomfortable, mortified, even, in her own body? Alicia isn't sure. It has to be this whole mess, all the uncertainty, surely? It'll be fine, if the results come back and it's what she wants what she _needs_ , it'll all be fine, she'll be able to tell everyone and everything will change inside her head, she'll feel… however she's supposed to feel, be able to actually enjoy this, not resent it. It'll be easier then, easier when she isn't having to avoid looking in the mirror, when she doesn't have to desperately try to deny it's all happening despite her body's best efforts to remind her, torture her. Of course it will be easier then.

Won't it?

"So what are you planning on doing, keeping on denying it until you have a baby in your arms in four months' time?"

She freezes for a moment, startled, quickly pulls on her white t shirt, clutches the next layer in front of her chest. "Have you been watching me? Because that is seriously creepy…"

"Don't try to change the subject." Louise stands in the entrance to the locker room, having clearly emerged from the cubicles, silent, undetected. "Are you actually planning to make an announcement?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, don't try that one on me, Alicia, everyone knows. You work in a hospital, for god's sake, did you really think we wouldn't figure it out? Noel even has a bet running on when you'll finally tell us. It's only going to get more obvious, you know, no one gains weight like that unless it's…"

"Will you stop?" She slips past Louise angrily, locks herself in the now-vacant cubicle, pulls on her scrubs, a hopeless battle trying to conceal the obvious.

"No, I won't, I'm worried about you. I don't get it. You do realise this is supposed to be a happy time, right? Except you wouldn't be behaving like this if you were happy. If this is about Ethan…"

Alicia closes her eyes, breathes heavily. "You know nothing, Louise. Okay? Nothing. Stop trying to interfere with something you don't understand."

"I'm not stupid, Alicia. Everyone knows you're pregnant, there's no point carrying on with the denial thing. And I don't know what happened with Ethan, no, but I'm assuming it's his baby, unless he left because…"

"STOP! Just stop, okay? Leave it! I don't want to talk about Ethan…"

"Well, did you argue because you're being so weird about being pregnant, then? This isn't normal, Alicia, this is so far from normal…"

If she keeps using that word, making it real, she's going to end up slapping her at some point during this shift, she can feel it coming. "I've told you, I'm not…"

"And I've told you, you can quit it with the denial act, no one believes it. I'm on your side, Alicia, believe it or not. I've been the one telling everyone Ethan didn't push you that day…"

"I don't want to talk about that." Her breathing is coming in gasps now, panicked, leans heavily against the cubicle wall. "No one thinks that, you're lying, they don't…"

"Fine, don't believe me, then. But think about it, Alicia, what are they supposed to think? The way it all happened, something was clearly up with you and Ethan back then, had been for weeks, and then all of a sudden, you've fallen down the stairs and Ethan's gone, no explanation, middle of the same shift? Robyn saw your notes, no one was buying Mrs Beauchamp's fainting story, even after we realised you were pregnant. Robyn said your notes have got cover up written all over them, she thought you were protecting him. Everyone was saying Ethan must have pushed you before I set them straight…"

"Oh, and you think you told them what really happened, do you?" Alicia retorts angrily, voice shaking. "You know nothing…"

"You don't remember, do you? Who did you think got Mrs Beauchamp? I was on my way back from chasing a CT, I was at the top of the stairs, I saw what happened. I was the only one who did, it was carnage that day in the waiting area, do you remember? No one down there was looking up when you fell, but I saw. I don't really understand what I saw, to be honest, but I know what I didn't see. I know he didn't push you, Alicia, I just set everyone straight on that. I figured the last thing you needed was everyone turning against him when he was next in, I didn't know he wasn't coming back then."

"What did you hear?" she demands, panicked.

"Nothing, I was too far up the next staircase, I only saw it happen. I didn't hear what you were talking about, but it didn't look like you were angry with each other from where I was. And he definitely didn't push you. Believe what you like, but I am on your side. I'm just worried about you, Alicia, everyone's worried about you. We want to help you, but we can't if you keep on pretending this isn't happening. Remember how everyone rallied round Robyn when she was pregnant with Charlotte?"

"I'm not… this isn't… that, it's not…"

"You can't even say it, can you? You need help, Alicia. This isn't healthy, you can't go one like this for another four months…"

"Well, I'm not going to, because you have no idea what you're talking about, okay? Just leave me alone, Louise. If you really want to help, you can stop trying to diagnose me and get away from me. I'm fine. I don't need your help."

"Do you not want this baby? Is that it? No one's going to judge you, we want to support you, you can talk to us. There are options… you can…"

It's unfortunate timing. Louise is driving her insane with her determined mission to get her to talk, admittedly, but that alone wouldn't have tipped her over the edge, not even hormonal and uncomfortable, horribly self-conscious, back aching before she's even started her shift, worry eating her alive. But Alicia hasn't slept, couldn't sleep last night, too anxious, on edge, kept awake by something she so badly wants to pretend isn't happening because it's just too painful, didn't even try today, sleep cycle completely messed up, drained, exhausted, far more so than she would have been on a night shift five months ago. But those words… those words cut through her like nothing else could, couldn't be further from the truth, coincide with movement, flutters, sweet and devastating and heart-warming and heart-breaking all at once, too much to cope with and Alicia snaps, unlocks the door, enraged.

"If you ever say anything like that again, I will make you shut up, since you clearly can't take a hint," she hisses angrily. "Do you understand? I'm not joking, I swear to god, I will make you shut up if you don't let this drop."

She storms out through the staffroom, an anxious Louise on her tail.

"Alicia! Alicia, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean…"

"Just stay away from me! Don't talk to me, don't try to help, just stay away! And just so we're absolutely clear," she snaps angrily to the entire admin station for good measure, "Ethan did _not_ push me down the stairs last month. Alright? That's pretty much the only thing Louise has managed to get right. I fell. By myself. I was stressed, I was expecting my registrar exam results back, I fainted. No one else's fault. Oh, and if anyone sees Noel, they can tell him I know all about his stupid bet, and I have nothing to say, so he'd better drop it before he seriously pisses me off, okay? Conversation over."

She looks down, suddenly embarrassed, turns to flee just as Mrs Beauchamp arrives.

"Right, we're almost at capacity, so I need you all fully focused tonight, please. And yes, we're still understaffed, and the trust have told me categorically there's no budget for another locum, the sooner our new F2s get here, the better. Dr Munroe, I want you in resus, bring Dr Masum with you."

"But… you do realise that leaves…"

"The F1s alone handling minors, yes, Dr Masum, thank you, I'm aware. But we've got an incoming major RTC, suspected drunk-driving incident, I need you and Dr Munroe in resus. Staff Nurse Fairhead will be supervising cubicles, anything they can't handle collectively, they can call through. We'll review the situation once the RTC patients are stabilised. With me please, both of you."

Alicia follows her obediently, numb, desperate for sleep.

"Now, there was a four-year-old in the back of the second car, Dr Munroe, I'd send you down to paeds now, but I'm afraid she's just not priority, stable, minor lacerations, according to the paramedics. I want you to go down and take a look at her before she's discharged, but in the meantime the paeds nursing team are going to have to handle that. They know to send for you if there are any unexpected complications." She pushes open doors out onto the main corridor, en route to the ambulance entrance. "Right, Nurse Tyler Sister Duffin, with Dr Munroe, please, Dr Masum, Nurse Hide, with me. We'll take the first patient, we're expecting the driver in first, collapsed airway, suspected pelvic fracture. Dr Munroe, if you take the second patient, suspected head injury, second driver, paramedics suspect driving well over the limit. Should be relatively straightforward, you'll be finished before us, you can get down to paeds."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Louise asks. "Alicia… I mean…"

"Alicia what?" Mrs Beauchamp glares at her menacingly. "Dr Munroe has just passed her junior registrar exams with a near perfect score, are you seriously questioning her capabilities?"

"Of course not, I'm just trying to point out what you two are determined to ignore…"

"Nurse Tyler, I can't imagine what this is about, but you are treading a very fine line, I suggest you don't cross it," Mrs Beauchamp warns.

"I'm just saying, are we talking violent drunk? Football was on at the stadium tonight, Holby got slaughtered. I'm just saying, do you really think that's the best idea, I know we're stretched, but…"

"Like I said, Nurse Tyler, I don't know why you've suddenly decided to start questioning Dr Munroe's abilities as a physician, but I suggest you stop, right now. Right, that's the first ambulance, I haven't got time to argue about this. Dr Munroe, we're expecting your patient any moment." She disappears off down the corridor at that, meets the paramedics in the doorway.

Alicia wanders down the corridor, distant, no desire to be in the presence of Louise and Duffy for any longer than necessary.

"… You're going to make it worse, Louise, just leave her be…"

"You didn't see her, Duffy, it's like she's on self-destruct, or something, someone needs to tell her to start putting…"

"That's none of your business!" Duffy hisses. "She'll hear you."

"I don't care if she does, she's not right at the moment, are you seriously telling me she's thinking straight right now? Mrs Beauchamp needs to stick her in paeds again, they can't do much damage to her or the baby in there, but she shouldn't be around angry drunk football fans."

"If she wants to get on with it, Louise, she wants to get on with it, you can't stop her. It's not like we have the staff for that, anyway. Or even know that's what we're dealing with, the football could just be a coincidence. And Robyn, just think, Robyn was dealing with worse than this on a night shift well beyond twenty-one weeks..."

If, god willing, it's good news next week and it all comes out into the open, Alicia is going to kill Robyn for apparently sharing the contents of her notes from last month around half the ED.

"Yes, but Robyn wasn't in some kind of weird state of total denial, was she? I'm telling you, this is going to end in disaster, she shouldn't be in work in her condition if she can't look out for herself."

The doors swing open again, the paramedics coming into view. "This is Neil Roberts, forty-five, driver in an RTC, air bag failed to deploy. Suspected head injury, fractured scaphoid on the right side, dislocated knee, also on the right side. Highly intoxicated," the paramedic remarks.

"M'not drunk…"

"Vitals would suggest otherwise, I'm afraid. Resps are low, lower than we'd expect after a high-speed collision, at least…"

"Right, let's get him through to resus…" Alicia manages, only half focused, struggling. "Louise, I need you to get a line in, fluids, please."

The paramedics are briefing her as they walk through to resus, Alicia can hear them, but no part of her can concentrate, absent, suddenly transitioned from numb to quite the opposite.

She's going to have to kill it. This tiny being, this last little piece of Ethan she has left, she's going to have to kill it, she knows she is, Ethan was right all along. She's going to have to dispose of it as though it's nothing, worthless, only just inside the legal limits, almost developed enough to survive without her and she's going to have to kill it, and she should have known that it would finally decide to make its presence known a week too early because that's just how her luck seems to work at the moment, but she failed to predict this and she can't bear it, she just can't bear it…

"Alicia?" Duffy asks gently. "Alicia, primary survey."

"Sorry, sorry." She shakes herself back to reality, desperately tries to focus on anything, anything else but that. "Mr Roberts, I'm Dr Munroe, I need you to keep nice and still for me, okay? Let's get him booked in for a CT then, please, clotting, group and save."

"Get these things off me!"

"We will, once we've got you to CT," Alicia tells her patient, turns to Duffy, rolls her eyes. "I need you to keep still for me until we can assess the extent of your head injury."

"Police are outside, they want to speak to him once he's stable," Louise reports as she heads back into resus. "They need to breathalyse, complicated extraction, apparently, there wasn't time at the scene."

"You're not arresting me!"

"No, I'm not, I'm a doctor, not a police officer. But I do need you to keep still for me, and if you aren't willing to cooperate we are going to have to restrain you for your own safety, just until we have your CT back."

"You tell them, I'm not drunk," he slurs angrily. "One beer… s'all…"

His breath reeks of alcohol.

"I think you've had a bit more than that," Alicia tells him, preoccupied with circulation, finally left in peace. "Have you taken anything else?"

"None of your business, that."

"Well, your heartrate's very low, so if you want me to treat you, you're going to have to be straight with me, okay?"

"You tell the police, she drove into me." He slurs, incoherent. "S'not… looks like…"

"Well, you can explain that to them yourself, soon as I'm finished with you here," she remarks.

"No, no you tell them," Mr Roberts repeats forcefully. "Not my fault, was it? M'not over…"

"We'll let the police be the judge of that one, shall we? That's nothing to do with me, I'm just here to patch you up."

"No, no, you must have some test here, you can prove wasn't me, she came out in front of me!"

"That's probably not something I can prove medically, no," Alicia tells him, frustrated, distracted. There's a child in paeds, she remembers, a child in paeds from the same collision, most likely in there because of this man, wasted, off his face, on a mission to blame everyone but himself. "Right, sutures, please." She turns to Duffy and Louise.

"You must be able to give me the good stuff, morphine, or something. You can't leave me like this, s'agony!"

"I can't give you morphine with this much alcohol in your system, no. The paramedics said they gave you…"

"M'not drunk…"

"So you keep saying. Right, before we take you through to CT I'm going to have to reduce this dislocation to your knee, alright? This is going to hurt, I'm afraid." She moves around to the rear end of the trolley, hardened, so not in the mood for drunken idiots like him tonight. "Duffy, I need you to assist me with this." She loosens the straps at the end of the spinal board, glances at Duffy, expression grim.

"You're not putting it back in without morphine, you got that? I need morphine!"

"And I've told you, I cannot give you morphine in your condition, it's completely unsafe. I know you've had pain relief. This is going to take seconds, alright, I just need you to keep still for me and it'll be over, and then we'll get you up to CT. I need you to keep still." She turns back to Duffy, takes hold of Mr Roberts's lower leg. "Okay, if you stabilise…"

Duffy nods. "On it. We'll have this over with in just a moment, Mr Roberts, okay?"

"You get away from me, don't touch me unless you're giving me morphine, alright?"

Alicia ignores him, grasps below the knee cap. "Okay, on my count… one, two, three."

There's a loud crack as she performs the reduction, an angry yell of pain, and then all of a sudden, she's knocked backwards, jarred, doubled over in pain, dull throbbing in her ribcage, and it takes her a little longer than perhaps it should to realise that he's lashed out and kicked her with his uninjured leg.

There's silence for a moment, total silence, save for the bleeping of the vitals monitors. She clings to the bars at the end of the hospital trolley until her knuckles are white, panicked, shocked, strangely calm, once she's tuned back in.

It's okay, she realises. It's okay…

"Right, that's it, I knew this was a terrible idea," Louise rants. "Alicia? Alicia, can you walk?" She places her hands on Alicia's shoulders, taking control. "Come on, Alicia, let's get you to cubicles."

"Hey, I'm your patient! You can't just leave me in here!"

"And given you've just kicked a pregnant registrar in the stomach, I'd shut it if I were you! And don't tell me it was involuntary, I watched you. Don't tell me. Heroin, is it? Or just plain morphine, painkillers? You were pissed at her because she wouldn't give you morphine and so you lashed out, I know what you did."

"Will you just… give it a rest, Louise?" She's dizzy, head spinning, resists Louise's attempts to gently pull her away from the trolley. "I'm fine. I'm fine, he got me in the ribs, I just wasn't expecting it…"

"Well, you don't look fine, we need to get you out of here. He can wait, Alicia. I've got you, come on…"

She shakes her head, clings to the bars, vision still slightly green.

"I didn't know she was pregnant, I swear…"

"Well, I'm not, okay?" Alicia snaps angrily. "Ignore her. Just ignore her, she doesn't know what she's talking about," she lies frantically, panicked. "Just leave it… please…"

"Alicia?" The hands on her shoulders are pulling at her now, gentle, just a little more adamant. "Alicia? Okay, I don't know if she can stand, let's get her a wheelchair."

"Will you just leave me alone, Louise?" Her voice is thunderous, explosive, not quite her own, consumed by anger and hurt and a desperate need for it all to stop, and it won't, one more week, one more week but it feels like a lifetime, and she can't, she just can't… "I'm fine. I don't need your help, I don't need you to interfere, I just need you to leave me alone."

Somehow, Alicia manages to muster the energy, the coordination, to haul herself upright and away from the support of the hospital trolley, half runs, half staggers, out of resus, along the corridor.

She's not entirely sure where she's going. All she knows is that she needs to get away, as fast as possible, anywhere, anywhere she's going to be left in peace.

"Alicia! Alicia, wait!"

She's too distracted, too distressed, to make out the voice calling after her at first.

"Alicia! Alicia, stop, just listen!"

Duffy, Alicia realises slowly. It's Duffy's voice.

"If you're going to say what I think you are…" she warns defensively, exhausted, still a little taken aback, shocked. "I'm fine, before you ask, I just need to… I don't know…"

It's only then that slowly, disorientated, she becomes aware of the trails of tears sticking to her cheeks.

Duffy's face softens with concern. "I was going to say Mrs Beauchamp's office is open, but she's still in resus two with the first RTC patient. So why don't you go and sit in there, calm down, breathe, see how you're feeling, I'll go and make you a cup of tea if I can find any of your revolting pretend milk in the fridge, and I'll send Mrs Beauchamp down as soon as she's free. Alright? Let's get you out of here, darling, you just need to sit down for a minute. Louise can oversee the transfer up to CT, there are plenty of porters around. They can manage without us for a bit."

She handles it rather well, Alicia will appreciate later. Duffy knows, Alicia knows she knows, but somehow, they manage to get through pretending as though she doesn't. Perhaps it's the midwifery training in her, or perhaps she's just more discrete, perhaps she's trying harder to understand; can't possibly understand, of course, couldn't have worked it out, not all of it, but at least she's willing to go along with Alicia's current coping mechanism and deny it's all happening. She guides her through to Mrs Beauchamp's office, steers her over to the nearest chair, guides her down, drapes a hospital blanket around her shoulders.

"I'm just going to pull the blinds down, Alicia, give you some privacy, alright? No one will come in here if they think Mrs Beauchamp's shut it off, will they, I don't think they'd dare." She moves away from the door now, crouches in front of Alicia, squeezes her hands. "Okay? You just a bit shaken?"

She nods, grateful, relieved. "I'm fine, honestly, I'm fine…"

"You sure? I'm going to go and make you tea, lots of sugar, I want you to sit here and rest for a bit, I'll be right back. Alicia," she says softly, carefully. "Listen to me, sweetheart. I need you to tell me if you're bleeding, okay? I'd go straight and get Mrs Beauchamp for you and then I'd leave you with her, no one else would need to know. You'd tell me, wouldn't you?"

Shakily, she nods. "Thank you…"

"It's alright. You don't need to thank me. I'm going to go and get you that tea, I'll be back in a minute."

The next few minutes are a blur. It must be a while that she waits; long enough for the kettle to boil, at least, for Duffy to make a detour to the staffroom, locate Mrs Beauchamp, long enough for Mrs Beauchamp to finish up with the RTC patient in resus. In some ways, it feels like no time at all that she waits; Alicia just wants to sleep, just wants to be left alone, in peace, closes her eyes and a part of her hopes that Mrs Beauchamp will be delayed until the end of her shift, that she can slip out unnoticed, no fuss. But in other ways, it feels like a lifetime, as every moment of quiet and stillness has for the last few days, something Alicia knows that in another life, she should be enjoying, but trapped in this awful uncertainty it feels as though it's some kind of awful, cruel punishment, a constant reminder of what she's going to have to do, what a completely terrible person she is.

She's saving it from a horrible, drawn-out, painful death, Alicia tells herself desperately. That's what she has to remember. She's seen what even just the initial onset of symptoms has done to Ethan, she knows how this is going to end for him eventually… she can't bring a child into the world not knowing if it will have to suffer the same awful fate, how could she live with herself then?

Prenatal diagnosis was her only option, the right decision, the only choice she could have lived with. Alicia knows that.

She just wasn't anticipating being stuck in this state of limbo for quite so long, and now everything is progressing, it's tearing her apart.

"Alicia?" The door swings open, and Mrs Beauchamp slips through quickly, slams it closed quickly behind her. "Alicia, you alright? Duffy told me what happened," she explains, voice gentle.

Ten weeks ago, Alicia had known this side of Mrs Beauchamp had existed, after the events of last summer, after Eddie, though no part of her had ever quite imagined the extent of it.

Ten weeks.

How can everything have changed in the space of just ten weeks?

"Alicia?"

She blinks, forces herself to focus, lifts her legs, pulls her knees into her chest as best she can, absentmindedly wonders if she's adopting this position because it's a way to hide the otherwise obvious, because she doesn't want to talk about it, wants to shut that conversation down before it even begins, even though she knows perfectly well Mrs Beauchamp won't allow her to get away with that.

She just wants to pretend. All she wants is one more week pretending this isn't happening, before her results come back and she can face this properly, deal with it one way or another.

"I'm fine," Alicia insists shakily, drops her knees again. "He kicked me in the ribs, it's fine, I'm fine. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I know I lost it, I know I shouldn't have run out of resus, it won't happen again…"

"I didn't come to find you to talk about that, Alicia. I understand. Actually, I wanted to apologise to you." She sits down beside her, presses a mug of tea into her hands. "From Duffy. Listen, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have put you in resus, I should have sent you straight to paeds, but we're so understaffed at the moment…"

Alicia shakes her head. "I know, I know, I shouldn't be in here, I'm fine, I can go back to…"

"No, no, you're staying right here for now, and then you're going home, alright? We'll manage. The worst of the RTC patients are dealt with, we'll be fine until the end of this shift. And I'll get onto Hanssen tomorrow, I'll tell him he'll just have to sort out his budget, we need a locum, at least for the time being. We can't go on like this. And I'll keep you away from any intoxicated patients for the next week, we'll review the situation after that if necessary…"

"I don't want any special treatment…"

"This isn't special treatment, Alicia. This is about your safety, I have a duty of care, and all things considered…"

"I know. I know, don't say it. Please don't say it."

"Alright. But you should know that Charlie and I did exactly the same thing with Robyn. This isn't special treatment, it's standard procedure. Emergency medicine isn't exactly risk free at the best of times, is it. This is just about keeping you safe. I know you don't want to think about this until after you have the test results back, and I understand that. I really do. But this is an exception. It's 50/50, Alicia. You know that. It could go either way. I was wrong to ignore basic safety protocol tonight, and I'm sorry. I can't turn a blind eye again, even for the sake of another week." She frowns for a moment, considers. "It'll have been two weeks tomorrow, won't it? Technically today."

She shakes her head. "I'm not expecting it until the end of the week, at least. You know what lab delays are like. Even if they get it to me next week, it'll still be under the legal limit, just… it's just not priority, is it? And I get that, of course I do, it's just so hard…" Her voice trembles, determined not to cry.

"I know." There's a pause as Mrs Beauchamp reaches for the box of tissues at the corner of her desk that seems to have become someone of a permanent feature over the last ten weeks, give or take. "And that's why I want you to go home. Get some rest. When are you next working?"

"Tomorrow. 3pm shift."

"Okay. Okay, but if you need to call in sick, you do that. Alright? We'll work it out, I'm going to talk Hanssen into giving us that locum."

"I can't put you in that position, Mrs Beauchamp…"

"Yes, you can. I'm telling you can, Alicia, you look exhausted. I wouldn't be telling you to in normal circumstances, no, but these aren't exactly normal circumstances, are they? Go home, forget this shift. Get some sleep. I only want you back in here tomorrow morning if you're feeling up to it, and I don't just mean physically. Alright?"

Alicia nods, defeated.

"Good. Good, then there's a side cubicle free. I want to check you over, just before you go home, then I'll walk you out…"

"I'm fine…"

"Alicia, we've talked about this."

"Trust me." She breathes heavily, shaken, determined not to go there. "I'm fine. Everything's fine. I know that, I don't need…"

"And intuition is all very well, but listen to me, Alicia, it's important, just think how you'll feel if you go home now and…"

She shakes her head, distressed. "I know. I just know." She sighs at the confused expression on Mrs Beauchamp's face, reluctantly accepts she's going to have to spell it out to her. "It… she's- it's going to have to be she, I don't know, I don't want to know, but I can't say it, that just sounds so cold. I started feeling her last week, right after… you know. All I wanted was for her to hold off a few more weeks, I didn't want to reach this stage and then have to…" She shudders, wipes her eyes furiously. "But she's fine. Honestly, she's fine, I know she is. She hasn't been any less active since it happened, she's fine. He didn't even kick me hard."

Mrs Beauchamp reaches over, places her hand on her arm. "Alicia…"

"I'm fine. It's fine, I don't want to talk about it anymore, I just want to ignore it. It's a week, maybe less than, I'm okay…"

"Are you, though? It's a lot, Alicia. It's a lot for anyone to be coping with, and that's without considering everything that's happened with Ethan…"

"I don't want to talk about that, I can't…"

"Alicia. Alicia, listen. I'm not going to push it now. I think you've got enough to be coping with just now. So we'll wait for your results, alright? We'll take it from there. But you need to talk to someone about this. Properly. I can arrange counselling…"

"I don't want that."

"I know you don't, but you can't go on like this. It helped, didn't it, last year? You need to try to process this, Alicia, whatever happens next week. It's important…"

"I just don't think he's coming back." It's the first time she's admitted it, even to herself, and she can't hold back the tears any longer. "It's been five weeks, nearly six… he's not coming back, is he?"

Mrs Beauchamp is silent for a moment, places her hand on Alicia's back. "I don't know," she says gently. "I really don't know, Alicia. I'm going to keep trying, alright? I need to speak to him anyway, there are loose ends I need to tie up with his resignation. And if I manage to get through to him, I'll make sure he knows you're alright." She sighs. "I'm sure that's what it is. It has to be. He wouldn't have left if... Anyway. Go home. Go home, try and get some sleep, let me know if you don't feel up to coming in tomorrow. Come on. I'll walk you out. And don't worry about Louise," she tells Alicia firmly, steers her towards the door. "I'll talk to her. She won't be bothering you again, I'll make sure of that."

Alicia nods gratefully, allows herself to be escorted down the corridor to the staffroom. "I know she's just trying to help, I just…"

"I know. I understand, it's alright. I'll wait here. Get changed, get your things, I'll get you out as far as the car park. I'll make sure no one asks any awkward questions."

She allows herself to be ushered out the building, practically escorted to her car before Mrs Beauchamp seems satisfied she'll be able to get herself home safely, too drained to argue. She's no idea what time it is, she realises, not until she inserts the key, dashboard lights up and she cringes with embarrassment, realises she hasn't even made it halfway through her shift.

She's tired. Yes, this shift has been draining, but it's not even halfway through and she's already exhausted, and she knows why, knows this isn't normal, knows exactly what's caused it.

It's only going to get worse. If it all works out, if she's able to continue with this, if her heart isn't broken all over again, it's only going to get worse, and she's going to have to keep working until the last moment, somehow, it's just going to have to work…

She can't do this. Either way, she can't do this. She's thought so little about what happens next if it's good news, has thought until now it's all she wants, that she can't allow herself to think about it because it will only destroy her when it all ends in heartbreak. And it is, that hasn't changed, not even with Ethan's revelation, not when he left, not after any of it.

She just doesn't know if she can do this by herself.

She's not entirely sure how long she sits there, silent, too tired to drive home, head a mess, the gentle sounds of rain on the roof of the car strangely soothing.

There's nothing. Just for a while, there's nothing, and then she feels it, those soft flutters, more solid, somehow, now she's worked out what she's feeling for, no denying it any longer. And then she's crying, sobbing openly, all control completely lost before she's quite realised it's happened, crying for Ethan, for _this,_ that she's going to have to give up, crying because she's tried so hard not to get attached to avoid exactly this scenario but all her efforts have failed miserably and she can't face it, she just can't, breathing frantic, heading into hyperventilation territory and no part of her cares, this isn't going to end, she's going to have to live with this forever, whatever happens…

"I'm sorry," Alicia whispers. It's the first time she's acknowledged it, since Ethan's revelation, and it feels awkward, strained, pointless, somehow, after months of denial, especially now, everything having progressed so far since then, so much harder to deny it all now than it was back then and yet somehow she's managed it, and now she doesn't know how, so confused, caught between thinking of it as something she wants so badly and some kind of parasite, something she has to endure and block out all emotion because it's the only way she knows how to cope. "I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry."

 **New chapter to get us all through the weekend, because once again Ethan and Alicia aren't on the cast list :( Things should start moving a bit faster from here- I know the last chapter was a bit of a filler, but I need to completely set the tone of Alicia and Chakra's relationship before I bring Ethan into their family unit properly.**

 **Thank you for all your ongoing support and messages, and a special thank you to Theverystuffoflife for reviewing the last chapter. I have one question for you all, you have a choice as to which chapter you want next:**

 **1) present day chapter- Ethan, Alicia and Chakra go to Glastonbury Abbey, Ethan/Alicia scenes.**

 **2) 22 weeks chapter- you may remember from a couple of chapters back that Alicia is waiting until 22ish weeks for her test results, that's all I'm saying...**

 **3) 14 weeks chapter- I'm saying nothing, this one's a mystery pick.**

 **I have all these about 30% written at the moment, so it will be the usual wait for any of them. Let me know in the reviews- and if you're all extra lovely, you might even get two at once ;) I'm considering putting two up together, maybe, because I have a weird thing about number 13.**

 **Also- and you have no idea what you're picking here, but it will make sense later. Ruby or Bea- any preferences?**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

"So you know King Arthur's knights didn't really wear armour like knights did in the medieval times, right? That's just how medieval people thought they must have looked, because there weren't any photos then, or paintings that were actually painted when King Arthur was alive. So they used their imagination, and they made them look like their knights. But really they would have worn armour, kind of like the Roman army did. Except the Romans had all left by then."

"I didn't know that, no, but that makes a lot of sense. Where did you learn that?"

"On YouTube. Mammy found a documentary about King Arthur and the Dark Ages."

"Oh, I see. So that's why you're so knowledgeable, then."

"Like, I know lots of stuff?"

"Exactly. Do you know what that is?"

She peers at the map, leans on the side of Ethan's wheelchair. "I think that's part of the abbey wall. Where the monks used to live."

"Oh, okay. So this would all have been ransacked by Henry VIII, do you know why?"

"He destroyed all the monasteries because he didn't believe in Catholic religion anymore, and he wanted a divorce so he could marry Anne Boleyn, and he wanted all their money."

He smiles over in Alicia's direction, impressed. "She's good, isn't she?"

"She's pretty much a walking textbook," Alicia agrees. "Just don't get her going on the Tudors, though. She doesn't like the Tudors."

"You don't like the Tudors? I thought every history enthusiast liked the Tudors."

"They're really boring. We did them at school, before Christmas. Ancient history is more interesting, or the things that we do know about the Dark Ages. We used to learn about the Dark Ages when I went to school in Newcastle. And the Medieval times. But then the Tudors steal the throne and they're just boring. And greedy. And they're not very nice people. Henry VIII treated his wives like they were his property, and girls aren't property, they're people, and they have feelings just like boys do."

"You're absolutely right. Don't forget that, will you? That's a very mature observation, I think the world would be a much better place if more adults thought like you do."

"Really?"

"Really." He's beginning to master it, Alicia realises; that careful balance between talking to her in an age-appropriate manner, acknowledging that she's a child, can't hold a sophisticated conversation, not quite yet, and avoiding patronising her. "So, these are the monks who found King Arthur's remains, right?"

"Kind of." Chakra skips along beside Ethan's wheelchair, unfazed. "These are the monks who told everyone they found King Arthur's remains. And Guinevere's."

"Oh, I see, so it wasn't really them?"

"Probably not, no. The monks didn't have very much money, and when they said they'd found King Arthur, pilgrims came to visit and they gave them lots of money, so it might just have been a big scam. That's what the documentary we watched on YouTube said. But they haven't written that in the guidebook."

"Well, that wouldn't attract as many visitors, would it? And it's not as good a story."

"No, I suppose not. Mammy, can I go up the ruins, where the stairs are?"

"You can, but be careful, okay? Hold onto the hand rail. We'll stay here and watch you."

She stands beside Ethan, watches her daughter- their daughter- run off towards the ruins.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Ethan tells her, looks up, meets her eyes. "I never doubted that she was mine. Of course I didn't. But seeing her now…"

"… She basically is you," Alicia finishes for him. "I know. She's a hell of an argument for nature over nurture."

"Oh, there's definitely some of you in her, personality wise."

"You think?" Alicia pushes Ethan's wheelchair over to the side of the empty bench by the pathway, sits beside him. "No more than she's been stuck with me for the last eight years, really."

"Well, she's got your spontaneity. And she definitely doesn't get her coordination from me."

She glances back over at her daughter, catches on. "Chakra! Chakra, that's a really bad idea! Stop, please! You're going to fall and break your neck! Sorry," she tells him apologetically. "She's usually pretty well behaved. They think they're a bit invincible at this age, really. I blame her gym coach, she keeps showing them photos of Russian gymnasts doing crazy balances on Instagram, or something."

"It's alright. You know, when we first… you well…"

"Reunited?"

"I guess so. I wasn't convinced at all, at first. Chakra, I mean. But it's grown on me. It suits her."

"Well, I was going to tell you that you can hold Ruby responsible for her name, of all people. But if it's grown on you, what can I say, I have good taste," she teases him, pauses for a moment. "What would you have called her?"

"What would I have called her? Chakra."

"Oh, come on, I'm being serious."

"So am I. I would have let you choose. You're the one who had to carry her for nine months and give birth to her, it's only fair."

"Seven," Alicia corrects him, automatically, doesn't hesitate, matter of fact.

It's only when she takes in the guilty, pained expression on Ethan's face that she realises perhaps she's been a little callous.

She's over it, now. Yes, it was horribly traumatic at the time, as labours go, but it's been almost eight years now; she's had plenty of time to get her head around it all, accept it, move on.

Ethan, in contrast, has had days.

They're silent for a moment, somehow, subconsciously, find each other's hands.

"I'm sorry," Ethan says finally, softly. "I know you needed me. I couldn't be what you needed, then, but I should have, I should have pulled myself together, for you. You shouldn't have had to go through all that by yourself, the not knowing…"

Alicia shakes her head, silences him, leans over to rest her head on his shoulder. "It's over now. It's over. There's no point going over this again when we can just focus on right now."

He nods, wraps his arm around her shoulders, pulls her in. "I've missed this."

"Me too." There are tears in her eyes and she's not quite sure why, shakes, not entirely sure whether she's just cold or whether it's something else entirely. "It feels like a lifetime ago, but then it feels like yesterday."

Ethan plays with her hair, frowns slightly. "You look tired."

"Your daughter woke me up at god only knows what time this morning." She closes her eyes, settled, could stay here forever.

"Is she alright?" There's concern in Ethan's voice now; he's suddenly alert. "I mean, I know nothing about kids, but she's a little old for that, surely?"

"She's fine. She's fine, she's…" Alicia sighs. "She has an amazing ability to suddenly remember all the things she's feeling slightly anxious about at around three in the morning, and amplify them by about a hundred. I can't imagine where she gets that from," she teases. "I don't think she's liking school much at the moment," she tells him; understatement of the century, but she's no desire to go through it all with Ethan, not now, not just yet. "She hasn't really settled. I feel bad, I'm the one who made her move back to Holby, but I thought she'd be fine, I really did…"

"But she's only been there since September, right? That's really not long in the general scheme of things."

She turns to face him, looks up. "You don't think so?"

"Not really. I think it took me most of my first year of secondary school to get used to it, new school, new classmates, all that stuff. Cal just got on with it, you can imagine, he was probably putting on the embarrassing little brother starting year seven act before I even made it through the school gates. I doubt that helped. But seriously, I think spent most of that first year complaining I didn't want to go. Since September really isn't that long. Not by my standards, anyway. Ours, I guess, if she gets it from me." He pauses for a moment, awkward.

"You can ask, you know," Alicia tells him. "Whatever it is, you can ask. She's your daughter, too."

Ethan sighs, grimaces. "Well, biologically, yes, but I haven't exactly been a father to her for the last eight years, have I? Not in the sense of actually being her dad."

"And I've told you, we're drawing a line under that and starting again, if you're serious about wanting to be in her life. And besides…" she pauses for a moment, conscious that she needs to choose her words carefully here. "It wasn't your fault, was it? Not completely," she adds, as Ethan raises his eyebrows. "You were ill, I get that. I understood it, even then. You were in shock, you weren't thinking straight…" Alicia trails off, hesitates.

She's a little afraid she's gone to make everything worse with this, and yet somehow, deep down, she knows it needs to be addressed. "You thought we were going to lose her, didn't you? That day."

Ethan pales, closes his eyes in despair. "I thought I'd killed her and broken your neck in the process, you mean? I was pretty certain of it, yes."

"Ethan…"

"You tried to tell me. I know, I know. I… I blocked your number for a while," he admits. "I knew you were alright, I knew you hadn't lost her. But then I just… it was too painful. I didn't think you'd forgive me, I certainly couldn't forgive myself…"

"Ethan," Alicia tells him softly. "You have to. Okay? You have to forgive yourself. It wasn't your fault, really, it wasn't. I'm fine. Chakra's fine. There's no point torturing yourself with something that might have happened eight years ago. It didn't. It's forgotten, Ethan. So we could play the what-if game all day, or we could put it behind us and just move on. You can ask whatever, she's your daughter."

"Does she…" Ethan trails off. "Don't take this the wrong way. She has friends, right? I was always the kid wandering around alone at break time when I was her age. Too eccentric, I think, I didn't really get the other kids, and they certainly didn't get me."

It's so clear what he's thinking. It's written all over his face, clear as anything. He's worried his daughter, his small human, mercifully untarnished by Huntington's Disease, has managed to inherit all the rest of what he considers his character flaws instead.

"Depends on the context, really. She has gymnastics friends. I seem to have promised her she can have half her gym group over for her birthday, now you mention it, how she managed to get me to agree to that, I really don't know. I think she was probably one of the popular kids at her last school, actually, not that I was keeping track. But she's hated school since we moved back to Holby. I can't ever get much out of her, but I think she's probably by herself most break times, yes. She's pretty good at entertaining herself when she's at home, she's totally fine with her own company usually. But I guess it's harder to be by yourself all the time when all the other kids aren't, isn't it? Just… don't tell her I told you that, will you? School's a bit of a sore topic, at the moment. I've told her there's no point spending all this week worrying about it, but she's just not taking the hint."

"Is she back next week?"

Alicia nods. It's not a lie, she tells herself, not when it's a possibility.

"And you're… you're managing? Fitting work in around her, and everything?"

"Well, you know. Night shifts are a bit of a pain, but Mam's still at a loose end by herself, she'll usually stay over when I'm on nights. And Bea and Ruby have her a lot, if our shifts don't overlap. She and Bea have some kind of special connection, actually, it's like ginger telepathy, or something. Elle's kids used to volunteer to babysit if I had to bring her into work sometimes, before we moved to Newcastle, but then they got distracted and she wandered into resus in the middle of a fasciotomy. She was four. Let's just say Elle never let them offer again after that. Duffy and Charlie will have her if I'm desperate, or Robyn and I will make sure we have opposite shifts and take turns with Charlotte and Chakra if there's a major incident. We've only had to resort to that a couple of times, though. You do whatever you have to do to make it work, don't you. But you…" Alicia pauses for a moment, hesitates, not entirely sure what she's trying to say. "You may have gathered from that, she hasn't exactly got a great selection of male role models in her life. So I'm certainly not going to make it difficult for you to see her, wherever we go from here. You're her dad. No one can ever take that away, I don't mean it like that. I just mean… well, she lives in a very female-dominated bubble. She needs you. Whatever capacity you want it to be in, however often you want to see her, she needs you. I can't be her father figure."

"Things with your dad still difficult, then?"

Alicia decides this isn't the moment to point out he's changing the subject.

"You could say that. He lives closer than Mam does, now, him and Martin, but we only see them a handful of times a year. Chakra's still pretty shy with him, she's not usually shy around adults. I think it was different with you, you know, at first? And she got over it pretty quickly, you're one of her favourite people, now."

"You really think that?"

"I know that. You've made it up there with Auntie Bea in what, a few days? Believe me, that's a compliment if ever there was one." She sighs. "I always imagined when I had kids, they'd be pretty close to him, you know? Like the relationship I had with him at Chakra's age, I guess. She must pick up on the tension between us, I don't know. I mean, he tries. He really does. But Mam's still not over the way everything ended, the way he strung her along for years, how close they both were to Martin all that time. It's difficult. He wanted them both to be 'granddad,' when Chakra was born, I wasn't quite sure how I felt about that, he chose a bad time to push it. I mean, it's his life, and everything. If he's happy with Martin, fine. But he doesn't get to break Mam's heart the way he did, make no effort with me for years and then just waltz into Chakra's life and play happy families with his new partner, you know? That was how I felt back then, anyway. It's probably my fault, she's probably picked up on my feelings, I don't know. He offered to have her, at first, when I went back to work after I had Chakra, he said he'd have her when I was on nights, if I needed it. I'd already sorted out childcare, really, by the time he said that, but I guess I kind of thought about it. But then he started saying if he was at work Martin would have her, and… I don't know. I can't say I felt particularly comfortable with that. I was nervous enough leaving her, when I went back to work, the last thing I needed was leaving her with Dad not knowing who was going to be looking after her when I got back."

Ethan ponders for a moment, careful. "If it's any consolation, I don't think I would have agreed to that either."

"I think it is, actually. I mean, I know you probably wouldn't agree completely with every decision I've ever made for her. But I'd like to think you'd agree with most of them."

"I don't think I get a say, really, all things considered. I mean, it was my choice, wasn't it?"

There's nothing Alicia can say to that, not really.

"Well, you get a say from now on, yeah? I mean it." She stops, attention drawn back to their daughter, emerging again through the abbey arch. "Ethan and I were beginning to think we'd lost you," she teases.

There's a moment, only brief, but there, before she utters those words, in which Alicia almost refers to Ethan by a different name entirely.

"I was looking at the chapel. This part used to be the Lady Chapel, the Normans built it. Most of it still looks like an old chapel, but without the roof, but they put a glass floor in it, because the floor must have gone. It's kind of cool, because you can look down, and you can see, but I think it's sad, because it looks strange, and I don't think the Norman people who built it would have been very happy. Or the monks. It doesn't look very…"

"Authentic?" Ethan offers.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that the new floor they put in doesn't look like it belongs. It looks too modern, is that what you mean?"

Chakra nods. "I prefer old things."

"I prefer old things, too," Ethan agrees. "So what are we seeing next?"

"I think we just have King Arthur and Guinevere's grave to go."

"We do? Time's really flown by, hasn't it? Okay, then, King Arthur's grave. You lead the way. Do you know where it is, can you tell from the map?"

"I think so. It's in between those ruins, see?"

They follow her together. Ethan probably views it differently, Alicia considers, most likely sees it as him being pushed along, invalid, and yet to her, they're following her together, the way it should have been all along.

No one ever said it had to be perfect.

"So do you think this is near the convent where Guinevere died?" Chakra asks. She's positioned herself in front of the tombstone, cross-legged, clearly not planning on going anywhere anytime soon.

"I didn't know she did die in a convent," Alicia tells her. "Is that in your book?"

"No, it's in the Heather Dale musical."

"Kerry the receptionist at your place downloaded it onto my phone for her," Alicia explains brightly, shoots Ethan an expression that tells a different story altogether. "Is that historically accurate, though?"

"I think so. Kerry said that's what Heather Dale does, she sings lots of Irish folk songs, too."

"She does? Well, maybe it is then, I don't know. Did convents used to be near monasteries? Maybe, if they did, I have no idea."

"She dies in a convent because King Arthur dies, and she feels guilty, because she thinks she's responsible for the fall of Camelot. And Lancelot tries to persuade her she can leave, if she wants to, but she tells him she thinks she should stay there because she has to apologise for all her sins, because she believes in God, like we pretend to all the priests at Church that we do. Mammy said that kind of lying is okay."

"Well, Mummy's the expert, if she says it's okay, I'd say it is."

"But usually lying isn't okay."

"No, that's quite right."

"But Guinevere's kind of lying isn't okay," Chakra decides. "Lying to Arthur and pretending she loves him and leaving him when really she loves Lancelot isn't okay. Does that mean she's a bad person?"

Ethan shifts awkwardly.

"Well, everyone makes mistakes, don't they?" Alicia tells her. "That's normal. The world isn't full of good and bad people, Chakra, there's just good and bad decisions."

"So if you make more good decisions than bad decisions, that means you're a good person?"

"I think it does. Or if somebody makes a bad decision, but then they make up for it. I think that has to count for something too, don't you think?"

Ethan watches them intently, bites his lip.

"I think so, too," Chakra decides. "If you do."

"Well, I'm glad you agree with me. So does that mean you're still going to agree with me on everything when you're a teenager?" Alicia teases her. "Can I have that in writing?"

Chakra frowns. "Why do you want it in writing?"

"Oh, you'll find out. Come on, then. Or are you going to sit here and stare at a tombstone all day?"

"I don't want to go."

"You don't?"

"No, because I don't want Ethan to have to leave."

Ethan's face visibly softens, touched.

"Well, Ethan doesn't have to go back just because we're leaving here," Alicia tells her, watches for Ethan's reaction, wills him to agree. "He could come back with us, couldn't he? We could invite him to have dinner with us?"

"Oh, I don't know," Ethan says carefully. "I mean, I don't want to get in the way…"

"Please?" Chakra blinks at him, eyes wide. "We have lots of space. We're staying in a cottage this time, it's on a farm, and it used to be a barn, but the people who run the farm made it into cottages. And if you don't drink milk that comes from plants, the farmers will give you milk from their cows, because they have lots of cows on their farm. And chickens. And we have cake. And Mammy's making dinner."

"I don't know," Ethan falters, but he's starting to cave, Alicia can see it. "I should get back, really, where… where I live, they're expecting me back for dinner…"

"Don't you like vegan food? That's what all my friends say, when we invite them over to our house and they don't want to say they don't like vegetables. But then we convince then to come anyway, and they always say they like Mammy's cooking."

"No, no, I like Mummy's cooking." She's 'Mummy,' today, Alicia realises, he's lost the 'your' when he's referring to her in front of Chakra. "I just haven't told them I won't be back for dinner, the people where I live, that's all. And… well, I have to take medication, you see, because of my illness…"

"So you need your medication?"

"Yes, I do. Well, not right now, but soon."

"So… so we could go to your… where you live, and then we could get your medication, and then you could come back with us and stay for dinner?" Chakra tilts her head to one side, eyes plead hopefully.

"Well… well, I suppose we could," Ethan agrees. "If that's what you want. Okay, then. Okay, I'll come."

She leaves them in the car together, figures it's going to be easier, leaves Ethan with Chakra and runs in without them, partly because she wants to spare Ethan the embarrassment, as he'll perceive it, of struggling out the car and into the building, and partly out of fear he'll change his mind if he walks back in through the doors.

"Hi," she smiles brightly at Kerry the receptionist, decides this isn't the moment to sarcastically thank her for getting her daughter hooked on weird music, to point out that she already has an honorary auntie for that.

Kerry looks up from her desk. "Oh, hi. Did you guys have a good day out with Ethan?"

"We did, thank you. Listen, I'm not entirely sure how this works, Ethan's acting like he needs to give notice to leave this place, or something. But he's going to come back with us for dinner…"

Kerry laughs. "Is that how he made it sound? Honestly, he's in such good health, by the standards of our residents, at least, the only thing keeping him here is himself. I'm still amazed you managed to persuade him out of here at all."

"Oh believe me, after the resistance he put up at first, so am I," Alicia tells her. "But he enjoyed it. Or he seemed to, anyway. So much so that he's coming back with us for dinner, I'll bring him back to you later, promise. He said he has medication he needs…"

"That's not a problem, I can arrange to have that sent down. Just bear with me one minute." Kerry reaches for the phone, glances back up at Alicia, eyes knowing, smiles. "You do realise you don't technically have to bring him back tonight, don't you?"

It turns out to be the perfect evening.

It's how it should have been, Alicia decides, how every evening of the last almost eight years would have been, in another lifetime. She makes dinner, Chakra 'helps' and Ethan supervises; it seems like the best solution, Alicia has gathered enough from watching him to suspect that the slight tremor to his hands, though not terrible, not yet, might rule out anything involving a knife, and it's a way to include him without having to acknowledge it. They eat dinner, Chakra rummages through the cupboards and finds a Scrabble board and they teach her how to play (ballet and rhythmic gymnastics terminology banned by the end of round one, medical jargon by the end of round two, deliberate misspellings (Alicia), words in other languages (Chakra- Russian picked up from gym coach, mostly insults) and helpful whisperings (Ethan to Chakra- he always was too soft, Alicia considers) by the end of round three), and before they know it, it's well beyond Chakra's bedtime.

Which, Alicia realises, presents her with something of a dilemma.

Her phone vibrates on the coffee table, and she reaches for it, assessing her options, Chakra busy forcing Ethan to sit through another episode of Merlin with her, happily babbling, fighting sleep.

 _Bea: Glad everything went so well. Not much is new here, Ruby's got herself a second date, but she's being really coy with the details, you totally have to spill if she tells you about it. Rabbits alive and nervously twitching, still not sure which is which thy, ough. Tried handling them, big mistake, tell C she's still their #1 favourite human. Oh, and I emailed you a link. My birthday present for C? Pleeeeease? She'll love it. I know it'll finish late but I'll book a hotel room, I'll bring her back the next day. So it's basically a present for you as well, you can't say no, right? X_

"Chak?" Alicia suggests. "Chak, do you want to facetime Auntie Bea, get a rabbit update? Yeah?" She unlocks her phone, hands it over. "Why don't you go upstairs and facetime Auntie Bea?"

She waits until the soft footsteps on the stairs have faded away before she turns back to Ethan, curls up next to him on the sofa. "I should probably get her to bed soon."

"No, no, of course," Ethan says quickly. "Sorry. It must be late for her, you should have kicked me out hours ago…"

"Hey, don't say that. Thank you. For staying."

"Not at all, thank you. For letting me. It's been… well, it' s been… you know."

She knows exactly what he means, of course. They're bothing thinking the same thing, too afraid to put it into words.

Look, you need to get her to bed, don't you? I can book a taxi, I can get out of your way…"

Alicia shakes her head firmly. "It's fine. It's fine, honestly, don't worry about it. Are you alright just to wait until after I get her changed into her pyjamas? I'll get her sorted for bed and then we can stick her in the car, she'll be asleep by the time I get her back here, I can just carry her up."

"I can't ask you to do that…"

"You're not asking, I'm offering. Or…" Alicia tries to read his expression, so unsure as to how this is going to be received. "You could stay?"

"I… I don't want to get in the way…"

"Ethan," she tells him softly. "Ethan, listen. I wouldn't offer if I didn't mean it."

"I…" Ethan glances around the cottage living area, anxious for a moment, and then all of a sudden, his expression seems to relax. "That's where you're sleeping, right?" he asks, gesturing to the door in the corner.

She nods. "That one. There's not much upstairs, it's a loft conversion."

"Well, if you're sure… I'd like that," Ethan smiles, pulls her closer, one hand on her forearm, the other brushing across her cheek. "I'd like that a lot."

They lean in together, eyes closed, lips brush for the briefest of moments, and to Alicia, it feels as though these last eight years have been no time at all.

"Okay," Alicia says softly. "Okay. There's a bathroom in there, make yourself comfortable, do whatever you need to do. I'll be right back, I just need to drag Chakra away from facetime and get her into bed. You can come up and say goodnight, if you want," she suggests, reluctantly pulls away. "I think she'd like that. Just give me ten minutes to get her sorted."

"I…" Ethan stammers. The colour drains from his face, turns positively green. "She's sleeping upstairs, right? I don't think that's the best idea. Just tell her goodnight from me, yeah? Tell her I'll see her in the morning."

Intuitively, Alicia knows it isn't the moment to push it. "Okay," she agrees, pretends she hasn't noticed. "Sure, that's fine. I won't be long, I'll see you in a minute."

It could just be the physical decline, of course. It could just be that he's afraid to tell her he's lost the ability to climb stairs unaided, but it isn't that, Alicia just knows. He's dependent on a walking aid now, she's gathered that much today; can more or less still move himself around, but only with the assistance of crutches. But the medical training in her tells her that there's no reason he couldn't make his way up the stairs holding on to the bannister, so long as she met him at the top with his crutches.

No, Alicia realises. As much as she wants to believe it's his physical decline in Ethan is worried about, in this particular instance, she knows she's only lying to herself, because it's so painfully clear there's another explanation.

It's the stairs. He's frightened of the stairs.

And in many ways, that's an awful lot worse than limited mobility.

 **Parts of this one were quite difficult for me to write- some of you may know why, if we've chatted over DM- so I hope it turned out okay in the end. There is a reason I chose to set part of this story in Glastonbury, the whole town, but one place in particular, has a special place in my heart, and I may or may not tell you why in later chapters, if Ethan and Alicia make it there. I think the plan is for another present day chapter after this one following directly on and then either a past chapter after that or in two chapters time- let me know if you would prefer differently!**

 **In the middle, Chakra is talking about Miles To Go by Heather Dale- the lyrics are actually quite poignant for Ethan's self-imposed exile at the clinic. If you want to check it out, you can find it on youtube- I recommend the version from her Avalon album over her Trial of Lancelot album, but that's just personal preference :)**

 **Thank you as always to my wonderful reviewers, your feedback is honestly the best thing ever to receive, and you are 100% the reason I'm managing to get updates out on this regularly. Please do drop me a review if you're still enjoying this- or if you're not! Constructive criticism/requests are always appreciated.**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	14. Chapter 14

**Just before you start this one- yes, it's the right chapter, I promise! You'll see what I mean. T** **here are a couple of big revelations in this one, one of them was hinted at in chapter 11- telling you that now purely in case you want to try to work it out before you read this, but it's entirely optional!**

 **There are also multiple sensitive topics addressed in this one, and I've tried to strike a balance between where I wanted to take this chapter and handling them appropriately. I hope I managed to pull it off!**

 **Chapter 14**

 _"No… no please… I can't…"_

 _To Ethan's credit, he reacts before she's quite realised what's happening. One moment he's on top of her, inside her, and she knows she's safe, that it's Ethan, that he wouldn't hurt her, but she just can't rationalise it, mind sliding into panic territory fast. And the next he's pulled away, gently pushes her into the recovery position, throws the covers back over her and holds her hand, sits on top of the duvet beside her, close enough that she knows he's there but separate, careful distance, makes it clear that she's safe, that he won't be moving in any closer unless she indicates it's what she wants, first._

 _"It's alright, darling," he whispers. "It's alright, you're safe. You're safe now. Breathe, Alicia. It's alright. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, it's all my fault. I took it too far, I got carried away, I'm sorry."_

 _It's enough to pull her out of her panic-induced trance, and she shakes her head frantically._

 _If there's one thing she can't bear, it's for Ethan to hold himself responsible for this._

 _"It wasn't… you…" she forces out, breath coming in frantic gasps. "I wanted it… too… you didn't… push me… into anything…"_

 _"Okay," Ethan says softly. There's a gentle pressure on her hand now, his thumb rubbing circles on her palm. "Okay. But all the same…"_

 _"No," she shakes her head. "It was me, it was completely my fault, I wanted it, I just…"_

 _"Hey, I know. It's alright. It's not your fault, Alicia, don't you ever say that."_

 _"I just…" she tugs on his hand, pulls him down next to her, needs him. "I wanted it so badly, it's not you, it's all in my head, I just can't…"_

 _"I know, I know. I understand. It's alright." He settles beside her, reaches over to rub her back. "It's alright. It's perfectly understandable. We're going to do this at your pace, okay? However you want to do it."_

 _"What if I can't ever…"_

 _"Alicia. Alicia, look at me. Listen." He cups her cheeks, gentle, sincere. "I love you. I love you more than anything, I'm going nowhere, alright? You're stuck with me. And yes, I can't deny, sex would be… well, amazing. Was amazing. But it's not the be all and end all. I love you. That's not conditional, okay? I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. If the sex doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. That's fine, I don't care about that, I care about you."_

 _"You're sweet." Alicia curls into his side, closes her eyes. "I wanted to. I really did. I just want us to be together, like a normal couple, I don't want him to keep… it's been a year…"_

 _"I know. I know, darling, but the first time was always going to be difficult, wasn't it? It's alright. Relax, Alicia, you're fine. Just relax. I didn't hurt you?"_

 _His question takes her by surprise at first, and then she realises she's pulled her legs up to her chest, protective, hands clutching her lower abdomen. "No. No, it wasn't you. I just… bad memories…"_

 _He's silent for a moment, rubs her back. "Did I… did I do anything?" he asks carefully. "You can tell me. If I did anything, anything that brought it back…"_

 _"No. No, you didn't, I promise, it's just me, I'm sorry…"_

 _"Alicia. Alicia, you never have to apologise for this. Alright?" He pulls her close, holds her protectively. "Is this okay? You can tell me, if it's too much…"_

 _"This is perfect." Finally, she relaxes, satisfied she's safe. "Promise you aren't disappointed?"_

 _"Hey, why would I be disappointed? It's not like nothing happened, is it? And even if it hadn't, I've told you, I love you. I never want to let you go. That isn't conditional on sex, okay? So stop worrying. I love you so much. I'm going nowhere."_

"Ethan," Alicia tells him worriedly. "Ethan, listen." He's tugging on the waistband of her leggings, and there's anxiety building in the pit of her stomach, far more than just the nerves she had anticipated at allowing him to see her surgery scar, the remains of the baby weight she never quite managed to shift, it runs deeper than that.

She's frightened. It's Ethan, she tells herself, it's only Ethan, and it's been almost a decade since that night…

But it's also been the best part of nine years since she last even attempted this, and no part of her can cope with it.

"I haven't…" she manages to force out, panicky. "I haven't, I couldn't, since we… I don't know if I can…"

Is it terrible a part of her is irrationally afraid of him, in that moment? Not him, not really; rationally, Alicia knows he won't hurt her, but those old psychological scars are still there and her mind is latching onto anything, recalls from her copious research into Huntington's disease, so long ago now, that it can be linked to disinhibition, knows he wouldn't, but she's frightened, irrational, yet to conquer this…

Ethan lets go of her in an instant, pulls away as though she's scalded him.

"I'm sorry," he stammers. "I'm so sorry… I should have remembered, I didn't think…"

She shakes her head, pulls him back, nestles into his side. They moved into her bedroom not long after she'd returned from upstairs, said goodnight to Chakra. He's tired, Alicia had realised; maybe it's his illness or maybe it's just that it's been such a long time since he's headed out into the real world, stamina gone.

All the same, perhaps she should have figured that he'd want this to happen, prepared for it, warned him.

"It's alright," she whispers. "You didn't know. How could you have? It's been eight years, Ethan…"

"But you told me there hadn't been anyone else, I should have realised…"

"Hey. For the record, there's been no one else because no one else was you," she tells him sincerely. "This is secondary. That whole thing, with _him,_ changed my perspective on all that. But yes, I… I guess I haven't made any more progress moving on in that respect, no."

Ethan sighs, pulls her in closer. "Do… do you want to?" he asks tentatively. "Because I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that, I should have checked you wanted…"

"No, no I do. I really do. I did. I thought I could… I led you on, remember? I just…"

"I know. I know, you don't have to explain, Alicia, I understand. It's alright."

They stay there in silence for a while, still reacclimatising, establishing how to be in each other's company again, intimate, after such a long time.

"This is never going to go away, is it?"

"Alicia. Alicia, listen to me. We don't have to rush anything, you can set the pace. Okay? I've waited eight years, just to see you again. This isn't a deal breaker. You aren't going to feel like this forever."

"But what if I do? It's been eight years, Ethan. Eight years, nine years, since Eddie and I still can't get my head around it, if anything it's worse…"

"And you've just told me this is your first time since, so when you think about it, it hasn't really been any time at all. It will get easier. It will, you'll see." Ethan laces his fingers through hers. "There's no pressure."

"I don't deserve you."

Ethan sighs heavily. "No, you don't. You deserve so much more than me, there's no excuse for how I've treated you."

Alicia groans internally, the moment well and truly ruined. "I didn't mean it like that…"

"No, I know you didn't. But it's true."

"You were struggling…"

"I know, but it wasn't fair to take it out on you. Especially when you were pregnant. You could have had so much better than me, Alicia. You still could. You could have a family, a proper family. I know you wanted more than just the one child, you could have…"

She shakes her head. "I've told you, I didn't want anyone else…"

"Alicia…"

"… And we've just established I still can't cope with the whole mechanics of making a baby thing, so…"

"And I've just told you, you'll get there. We managed to create Chakra, didn't we? And I know what you're going to say, but we did, you were fine long enough for us to conceive Chakra. It's just going to take time, and that's totally understandable, after everything you went through. But you shouldn't have waited for me, I'm so not worth that. You could have had a family, we all know more kids would always have been ruled out with my genes, I couldn't have put you through that again…"

Silently, she turns to face him, pulls away, lifts up her top, waits for it to click.

Ethan frowns, traces the thin scar between her hip bones. "Caesarean delivery?"

"Home delivery," she tells him. "Completely unintentional, exomphalos babies should be caesarean deliveries, yes, but it all happened too quickly, no ambulances available, you know how it is sometimes. Bea and Ruby were brilliant."

"Then…?"

"Emergency hysterectomy. Massive placental abruption, there wasn't really much choice." It's the only way she can talk about it still, matter of fact, reciting off the details as though it happened to one of her patients, not to her.

Ethan tightens his grip around her, clings, as though in his head, it's not over at all, still happening now. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm so, so sorry, I should have been there…"

Alicia shakes her head, curls, rests her head on his chest.

"You're here now," she says simply.

"But that doesn't take away the fact that…"

"Ethan," Alicia silences him. "Yes, it does. You're here now. Everything's fine now. But yes, we're only going to have the one, so you're just going to have to make the most of her. Not that you could have paid me to go through labour again, anyway, so it's probably just as well." It's an attempt to lighten the mood, teasing, and yet it doesn't come out quite the way she had hoped.

He holds her for a while, silent, the two of them content simply in one another's presence.

"You can't be more tired than I am," Ethan teases her gently, breaks the silence. "That's not fair. I'm the one with an excuse."

It's the elephant in the room still, but if they're starting to address it, Alicia tells herself, at least it's a start.

"Hey, I have an excuse too. Our daughter woke me up at stupid o clock in the morning, remember?"

"Are you sure she's alright?" Ethan worries. "She ate about half her dinner, if that, she didn't even want the cake…"

"Kids are like that. At her age, anyway. One day they eat more than you do, the next they eat like a sparrow. I think she does it deliberately to catch me out."

"But she's not going to want to come in here, is she, if she wakes up again tonight? I can go on the sofa…"

"No, you can't, don't be stupid. I want you here."

"But, it's not going to freak her out…"

"Well, we've already established that if she does walk in on us, we're not going to be…"

"Alicia!"

"What?"

"You can't say that about our daughter!"

"Hey, I didn't say anything, you're the one who went ahead and used your imagination," she teases. "It'll be fine, Ethan. I'm the one nearest the door, anyway, if does come in. I'll just take her back upstairs, I can stay up there with her if she needs me. It'll be fine. Stop worrying. You're her father, Ethan. She's not going to think there's anything remotely weird about us sharing a bed."

He nods, satisfied. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure. It'll be fine, honestly. This is all hypothetical, anyway, she'll usually just sleep. I think she's pretty tired, I took her up way past her bedtime. If we make it to three am without her coming in here, we're probably safe."

He falls silent again for a while, but his expression is pensive, guilt-ridden, even through the semi-darkness.

"You can say it, Ethan. Whatever it is, you can say it."

He sighs despairingly. "I just hate that I wasn't there," he confesses. He's tracing her surgery scar again; even through the semi-darkness, she can tell he's paled. "You shouldn't have had to go through that by yourself…"

"Women go through it by themselves all the time, Ethan…"

"You know what I mean. Hysterectomies are grim at the best of times, you shouldn't have been coping with a new born by yourself…"

"I wasn't." There's no way to break it to him gently, she figures; if he really wants to have this conversation now, she's just going to have to do it. "I didn't get her out of hospital until her due date."

Ethan sighs heavily. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I should have realised…"

"It's alright." Perhaps this is what he needs, perhaps he just needs her to go through it all with him, so he can feel included, perhaps that will help him get over the guilt of not being there when it all happened. "She needed a staged repair. Exomphalos minor, but she was borderline, and she was 32 weeks. And she was tiny for 32 weeks, not that they kept reminding me or anything." She shudders.

"Too tiny for full repair," Ethan finishes for her.

"Exactly. And then she couldn't feed for weeks. I thought they were never going to take her off the IV. I know that's stupid, I knew better than that, obviously. But it's not so easy to think logically when it's your own baby."

"How small was she? Sorry, sorry, I know it must be painful, having to go through it all again. I don't even know how much my own baby weighed…"

"Ethan. Ethan, it's alright. Three one," she tells him grimly. "She was seriously tiny. Probably my fault, I was still smoking on and off until twelve weeks, and… well, you know, you were there, I was a total mess…"

"You can't blame yourself for that," he tells her firmly. "You can't go there. It was an awful, awful situation, I'm amazed you coped with it all as well as you did. But I should have been there. I should have been there, I could have sat with her while you were in recovery, she wouldn't have had to have been all alone…"

"She wasn't. Alone, I mean. Not a lot, anyway. Bea and Ruby pretty much had her covered between them. That's probably why she and Bea are so close, actually, Bea practically lived in Neonatal for the first week or so. I think she must have persuaded Mrs Beauchamp to cut her shifts down, I never managed to get to the bottom of it. But it's not the same. She's only got one dad."

"Bea probably would have been more comfort to her anyway." There's guilt in his voice, regret. "Even if I'd come back then, if I'd answers everyone's calls… she wouldn't have known my voice. It was too early, when I left."

"She knows you now." It's no consolation, but it's all she can say, all she can do to try to make it better. "She won't remember that you weren't there then, Ethan. She'll only remember that you're here now."

 **I wasn't planning on posting this until the weekend, but I had such lovely reviews for the last chapter that I wanted to get this one up for you all today. Thank you so, so much for all your kind words, you are all brilliant and I appreciate every single one of you. And I am so relieved you don't hate the King Arthur bits!**

 **And as a side note, you are all far, far too polite- not one of you told me I had randomly written the beginning of a line of Alicia's dialogue in chapter 12 in my second language! Please feel free to shout at me if I do something stupid like that again!**

 **As ever, please do let me know what you think of this one, and whether you want more Ethan/Alicia chapters like this. I _think_ I'm going to give you a past chapter next (22 weeks) and then another present chapter, but please do let me know if you would prefer otherwise! **

**-IseultLaBelle**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

 ** _22 weeks_**

She doesn't sleep, those next two nights.

She can't. There's so much going on in her head, too much to process, so many emotions she can't cope with them all at once, sick of the uncertainty, exhausted, desperate for this state of limbo to end.

It was bad enough before, but somehow, she managed to cope with it.

Alicia might even have succeeded in surviving this final week if everything had stayed as it was.

She had it all worked out. She could ignore the physical changes by refusing to look, closing her eyes, avoiding mirrors, whatever she needed to do, could avoid what under normal circumstances would be the inevitable maternity shopping by taking advantage of the February weather and hiding in oversized jumpers (Alicia refuses to spend money on clothes to accommodate a baby there's a fifty percent chance she'll have to terminate next week; that's how she sees it, at least), could refuse to acknowledge it all, shut every attempted conversation down with utter hostile denial, refuse the scans, the check-ups, all of it.

But try as she might, however desperately, she just can't come up with a strategy for coping with the internal changes.

One week. If only she could have avoided it for one more week.

It always seems to be at night- or _her_ night, at least, night shifts depending. There's probably an explanation for that, something long forgotten from medical school, but Alicia doesn't have the energy or the willpower to try to remember. Or maybe there isn't at all, maybe this is just how her luck works.

It feels as though it's torturing her. And that's an awful thing to think- Alicia is fully aware of that- but it's true.

She didn't want to know, not like this, not definite confirmation. She just wanted to ignore it as much as she could unless it was something she could keep, because accepting the alternative was going to be painful enough as it was, before this progression rendered that option impossible.

She wanted this. It hadn't been planned, no, not just now, she and Ethan had barely been back together a year, and yet in those few perfect hours before she had told Ethan, it had been everything she had ever wanted, and the truly painful part is this could well be her only chance. Perhaps that's overdramatic. She's only thirty, after all; time is still very much on her side, but it doesn't feel like that.

Aside from the fact that Ethan's departure has shattered her heart well and truly, Alicia can't imagine how the other situation is ever going to get any better, ever, never mind in the next few years. Not after what Eddie did her.

It's just typical, really. It's so, so typical that given Ethan's genetics and the catastrophic risks involved, her pitifully brief, ultimately traumatic attempt to reclaim sex in the aftermath of her trauma of the year before last would lead to… to this.

Louise is right. She definitely can't bring herself to use that word.

In another life, she would feel as though it was meant to be, Alicia is sure of it. Everything would be different then. It wouldn't take away her PTSD over anything too intimate, too close to the events of that night, admittedly; perhaps that wouldn't change. Perhaps she would never get over it either way, but it wouldn't matter so much, if she could keep this baby.

Her chance to be a mother won't become potentially yet another loss to add to the long list of things Eddie has stolen from her if only she can keep this baby.

The trouble is, Alicia has been so careful to avoid getting her hopes up, to unsuccessfully avoid attachment, that she can no longer imagine that being the outcome.

She's disorientated, doesn't quite realise she's crying at first. It feels as though she's losing her grip on reality, caught in a constant state of panic she just can't shake, one she's so certain is going to be replaced with utter heartbreak at some point over the next few days and she can't, she can't…

"Alicia? Alicia, you alright?" Bea calls, voice laced with worry. "Alicia? Can I come in?"

It's only at the sound of Bea's voice that Alicia realises she's sunk down to the floor, knees pulled into her chest, sobbing hysterically and she can't even remember getting out of bed.

"I'm fine," Alicia calls, though she's in no doubt that she's quite the opposite of convincing, voice shaking, knows that Bea can hear her sobbing from the other side of the door. "I'm fine, go back to sleep…"

"You hurt? Alicia? What's wrong, sweetheart, tell me what's wrong…"

There's something about the care in her voice, or perhaps it's her assumption that there's something wrong, that awful, painful irony, something that tips Alicia over the edge, only causes her to cry harder.

"Right, Alicia, I'm coming in," Bea warns her, pushes open the door. "Alicia?" She's by her side in an instant, curls up on the floor next to her, pulls her in close. "It's alright. It's alright, breathe. I'm not going anywhere. I know it's not the same, but you're stuck with me. Okay? Well, you can kick me out if you need the bedroom, but you'll still be stuck with me. You've seen me nearly burn the kitchen down, I'd still be round every night for your cooking. See, that made you laugh, didn't it? You want to talk to me?" she asks softly. "Breathe, Alicia. Slow, deep breaths for me. Just breathe. You're doing so well. One week, yeah? Maximum. Almost there. And then we'll deal with it, whatever happens. Just one more week of this. You're alright."

Alicia shakes her head, frantic. "I can't do this. I can't…"

"Yes, you can. You've made it this far, it's not for much longer. It's almost over. You're doing so well…"

She shudders, sobs, gives up trying to control her breathing; doesn't deserve it, she figures. "You don't… understand…"

"Hey, I know, but I'm trying to, sweetheart. I know I can't understand, but I'll try to, okay? Talk to me. You can talk to me, you can tell me anything. It's alright. You'll feel better if you talk about it."

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do. We've had this conversation a few times lately, remember? Even if I can't make it better, at least you won't have to deal with it by yourself anymore. You need to get some sleep, Alicia," she tries. "You must be shattered…"

"I'm sorry I woke you…"

"You didn't, don't worry. I was already awake. I'm more worried about you, you need to sleep…"

Alicia shakes her head frantically. "I can't…"

"I know it feels like that, I know, but you need to try. Your shift pattern's better next week, right? Erratic night shifts are a nightmare at the best of times."

"It's not that…"

"Then are you going to tell me why you're awake? I just want to help, Alicia, I don't like seeing you so upset." Bea sighs at Alicia's silence, reluctance, confusion over where to even start. "Come on, you need to get some sleep. Are you sure you're not in any pain?" she worries. "Alicia?"

"No, I…"

Screw it, Alicia decides, perhaps she will feel better if she talks about it. "I can feel her moving. She started a couple of weeks back, right after prenatal diagnosis, and I thought I could just ignore it but I can't…" She's crying openly again now, slowly processes what she's just said, too far gone to care that somewhere deep down in her sub consciousness she seems to have decided it's she, for now, at least.

Now might be it, of course. It might never go any further than this, she might never know…

"I didn't want to know she was real," she sobs, not sure she's making the slight bit of sense. "I didn't want to know, I thought if I just ignored it all I could pretend it wasn't happening and it wouldn't be so hard, but it's different now, I can't do it anymore. I can't kill her, I can't not think of her as an actual person now, it's different, I can't… but then I can't make her suffer, it's not fair, I can't go through with it knowing she's going to die so horribly, I can't be that selfish. And I feel so awful, it's like she's trying to tell me she's there or something and I know I'm not supposed to just ignore the whole thing but I can't be happy, I can't, not like this. And I just… I've tried ignoring it, I really have, it's just once I've felt her I can't think about anything else and I can't bear it, I can't, and I know she deserves so much better than that, she deserves so much better than this, she deserves so much better than me…"

"Alicia," Bea says gently, firmly, clear from her tone there's no room for arguments. "Alicia, listen to me. That isn't true, sweetheart. That isn't true, I don't ever want to hear you say that again. It's a shitty situation. That's all. This isn't your fault, you're coping with this the best you can. You're doing amazingly. You'd be…" she pauses, sighs, as though there's something she desperately wants to tell her but doesn't quite dare. "None of this is your fault," she says at last. "You need to stop being so hard on yourself. It's perfectly understandable to feel…"

"I don't know how I feel," Alicia admits shakily. "I don't even know how I feel about it anymore, I just… I love her so much," she sobs helplessly. "Her, him, I don't know. And I can't, I can't, I promised myself I wouldn't, but I just can't help it…"

"I know," Bea says softly, equally helpless. "I know, I know. I get it. You're only human. Of course you can't help it." She holds her tighter, grips, as though she's trying to her together. "One week, at the most. Just one more week."

They sit together for a while, in the darkness, huddled together on the floor, silent, nothing left to say.

"You want to try to sleep?" Bea asks softly. She's no idea how long it's been, Alicia realises; lost all track of time, disorientated by the lack of sleep and the mess of night and day shifts and still so thrown, distraught, uncomfortable, desperate for it all to be over. "Alicia? You're going to be shattered tomorrow, you need to try to get some sleep. I know it's hard, I know…"

Alicia shakes her head, cringes in the darkness, torn between something unfamiliarly maternal and utter rejection and so painfully confused, still not used to this, can't risk allowing herself to get used to it, not at this stage. She doesn't quite know how to describe it; tiny movements, flutters, unlikely to allow her to sleep whether she wanted to or not, threatening to melt her heart and shatter it all at the same time. "I can't… I can't not think about it… it'll just make it worse…"

There's silence again, and Alicia can practically sense Bea assessing the situation frantically, in search of a solution that doesn't exist.

"Right, come on," Bea decides at last. "We're going for a walk. Ruby, if you're awake, get your shoes!" she shouts, as though it's the most normal thing in the world.

Alicia stares, baffled, too exhausted and distraught to care, not entirely sure why she's putting up a fight. "It's four in the morning…"

"So we'll stick to the lit roads and keep away from the pubs and the drunkards. It'll be fine. Babies like movement in utero, sends them to sleep," she shrugs. "I think so, anyway. Obs and gyno was my first F1 placement, it was a while ago, but it'll distract you either way. And you'll probably be so tired and fed up with me by the time we get back you'll just sleep anyway, so it's a no brainer, really. Just don't go and sign yourself up for back to back shifts for the rest of this week if it does work, okay, that's probably not sensible, and Mrs Beauchamp would definitely kill me. Come on. You need a coat, it'll be freezing out. I'll be right behind you." She ushers Alicia through to the staircase, hovers on the landing with her phone; sounds of movement from upstairs tell her Ruby must be awake.

"Ethan?" Bea snaps, thunderous. "Ethan, if you're listening to this, call me back _now_ , please. This has gone on long enough. Alicia needs you, in fact, I'm willing to bet you both really need each other right now, so if you could just, you know, snap out of whatever weird guilt complex you have going on and get back here, that would be great. Alicia's fine, okay, everything's fine, you don't need to worry, but she isn't going to be if you carry on treating her like this."

Bea's idea isn't so completely ridiculous, as it turns out. Perhaps she explains to Ruby, while Alicia is rummaging in the cupboard under the stairs for gloves and a hat, thoroughly prepared to freeze to death. She isn't sure. But somehow, Ruby seems to understand. They walk together, the three of them, arms linked, sharing each other's body heat, Alicia and Ruby allowing Bea to take control, guide them god only knows where. Maybe Bea is right, maybe, typically, there's something about stillness that triggers movement, movement that Alicia can completely see would be welcomed in any normal situation, in another life. Or maybe it's just better when she's preoccupied because she's less likely to notice, busy, distracted, can keep on pretending none of it is happening unchallenged. Alicia isn't sure.

Either way, it works. The silence is both a blessing and a curse, admittedly. A blessing because Alicia doesn't have to speak, doesn't have to explain, doesn't have to do anything at all but allow herself to be led along, Bea and Ruby's arms around her as though they're trying to hold her together, prevent her from breaking down completely, and a curse because even if she's spared that painful reminder, the movement, the final sign she can't ignore that this is happening whether she likes it or not, her mind can still wander, she's more conscious, if anything, of the utter emotional mess she's going to be left in once this is all over, however it ends.

Ethan.

All she wants is Ethan, Alicia considers, Ruby gently rubbing her back, not quite as reassuring as it would have been had it been Ethan.

If anything, that only makes her cry harder.

She just wants Ethan. She doesn't blame him for this, not in the slightest, wishes more than anything she could have just got that through to him, somehow. She doesn't blame him. Perhaps he should have told her, been more proactive on the protection front, but it was one time, embarrassingly brief, no real possibility of doing it again any time soon after it had sent her straight back into flashback territory.

It's just so unfair. It's so unfair that one time, that one time that barely even qualifies as sex, has resulted in this, ruined everything.

Is it terrible that's how she views this baby? Tonight, anyway. Tonight, she's exhausted and she's distraught and she's sick of trying to cope and she just wants it all to be over, just wants Ethan back.

But Ethan coming back seems completely out of the question now, and it's the most difficult thing in the world to accept.

She sleeps that night, at least. She collapses into bed and she sleeps, the minor resentment she had previously felt towards Bea for dragging her out into the cold well and truly faded away, because it worked. Alicia isn't sure what worked, exactly, but she sleeps, her only complaints that she's the size of a bloody house already, barely halfway through this nightmare (or at the end of it, of course, nothing is ever simple with this) and it's both impossible to get comfortable and impossible to manoeuvre herself without dragging all the extra pillows along with her, a major operation.

That, and the other side of the bed is still far too cold and empty.

She goes through the motions, the next morning. Somehow, she manages to drag herself out of bed, dumps most of the breakfast Ruby makes her into the bin but at least it's when she and Bea aren't looking, shivers violently in the back of Ruby's car en route to the ED, negotiates the staff room, the changing area, mercifully confrontation-free. She and Bea are on shift together today, for the first time in weeks, and Alicia suspects her lack of unwanted comments that morning have rather a lot to do with Bea watching over her menacingly, daring them all to comment.

They're almost finished with their first patient when Mrs Beauchamp appears in cubicles.

"Dr Munroe, I need to borrow you for a moment," she announces, a strange expression on her face Alicia can't quite place, and it fails to click at first. "My office, please, as soon as you're done here. Bring Dr Kinsella with you."

"Already?" Bea groans loudly, once Mrs Beauchamp is safely out of earshot. "It's, like, an hour into this shift, for god's sake. That must be a new record."

Perhaps it's the exhaustion, the events of the night before last and the lack of sleep, the distress, or perhaps she's just subconsciously refusing to consider that it's even a possibility, self-preservation. But still Alicia doesn't put it together, not even as they enter Mrs Beauchamp's office, still half-convinced this is about something she's messed up this morning, or something she's allowed Bea to mess up, unnoticed, failing that, something she should have picked up on as her mentor.

No part of her is in the right headspace for work today, but she can't bear the thought of sitting around at home either.

"You wanted to see us, Mrs Beauchamp?" Bea asks carefully.

"Mrs Beauchamp looks up from her computer screen. "Yes, yes I did, take a seat."

They glance at one another hesitantly, not entirely sure where this is going, as Mrs Beauchamp opens up her desk drawer, moves around to sit beside them, holds out a thin, white envelope.

"Alicia," she says gently. "This came through for you from genetics this morning."

Everything stops.

"Now, they've sent your official letter home for you," Mrs Beauchamp is explaining, and Alicia tries so hard to concentrate but the room is spinning, heart pounding. "I think you'll get it in the post tomorrow. But I asked Obstetrics to arrange to have your results sent up here as soon as they received them. Call it staff benefits. I thought you might want some moral support," she explains, glances across to Bea. "Alicia? I'm going to give you some space, alright, I'll be just outside…"

Alicia shakes her head, just about all she can manage. "No, no… it's alright, you can stay…"

She's not going to have the strength to have to explain the contents of the envelope if it's bad news, she knows she isn't.

"Okay. If you're sure." She presses the envelope into Alicia's hands gently. "Take as long as you need, alright? There's no rush."

She stares at it for what feels like a lifetime, panicked. There are so many emotions running through her head in that moment and she can't make sense of them, can't even begin, paralysed, afraid.

She's wanted nothing but this envelope for the best part of ten weeks, but now it's in front of her, she can't bring herself to open it.

As soon as she pulls out the letter inside, she's going to have to deal with its implications, and no part of it is ready.

"What happens now?" She looks over at Mrs Beauchamp shakily.

"I've persuaded Obstetrics to fit you in now. You've got an appointment in half an hour. I know it's sudden, but it was the best I could manage, I'm afraid, they've only just brought this down. Either way, they're going to need to see you, talk you through the next steps. I can cancel it, it isn't a problem, I just wanted you to have the option. Just let me know what you want to do, I'll sort it."

Alicia glances across to Bea, suddenly aware of the gentle pressure on her free hand. "I can't do this…"

"Yes, you can." Bea drapes her arms around her shoulders, squeezes. "It's alright. I've got you. Whatever happens next, we're going to deal with it, okay? You're strong enough to do this."

She holds the envelope out to Bea, eyes pleading. "You open it."

Bea sighs sympathetically. "Are you sure?"

She nods, hands shaking, nausea rising in her throat. "I can't. I can't, I just can't…"

"Hey, it's okay." Bea takes the envelope from her carefully, somehow manages to rip it open one-handed. "Alright. You sure about this?"

"I'm sure. I can't…"

"I know. I know, it's alright, I just wanted you to be sure. I'm going to unfold it, okay? There's hardly anything on it, this will be quick. Okay…"

It must be seconds, if that, that she waits, but it feels like hours. She can feel Bea's free hand grasping hers, Mrs Beauchamp's stroking her arm, but she feels disassociated, somehow, absent, can't focus on anything but the contents of this letter, on the next word Bea utters that is either going to allow her to breathe again or rip her apart, she can't do this, she can't…

"Alicia," Bea says softly. "Alicia, you still with me?"

It's only with those words that Alicia realises she's closed her eyes, swaying slightly, somehow manages to force herself back upright, stares into her friend's eyes desperately.

"Negative," Bea tells her gently. "Results are negative. No Huntington's, perfectly normal genetics. Everything's fine. Look." She holds out the letter gently, lets go of Alicia's hand, points. "There, see? Negative. Totally healthy, normal baby. It's alright. Everything's alright. Hey, come here. Breathe, Alicia."

It's only as Bea pulls her into her chest, hugs her tight, that Alicia realises she's frozen, somehow forgotten to breathe, and then she's sobbing helplessly, every supressed emotion suddenly pouring out of her.

Somehow, Bea must realise that she can't quite take it in, not yet. "Let it all out," she murmurs. "Breathe. Just breathe. It's alright, everything's going to be alright now. This part's over. It's all over, Alicia, it's over. Everything's fine." She's silent for a moment, strokes her hair. "So this means I get to be Auntie Bea, right?" She waits for Alicia to nod, still too overwhelmed to speak. "Good, because I'm going to be the best honorary Auntie ever, okay? And I'll babysit, whenever you want. For a fee, obviously. And I'm buying you all the cute baby stuff, don't say I didn't warn you. It's alright, sweetheart. It's alright. Everything's going to be alright now."

"I'm happy," Alicia manages to force out through her tears. "I'm so happy, I just…"

"Hey, I know. We're not doubting that, Alicia, neither of us are doubting that. You just do what you need to do, okay? Cry as much as you need. It's alright. Just keep breathing for me, I don't want to pick you up off the floor."

She smiles faintly, somewhere between laughing and mildly unimpressed and blissfully happy and relieved and exhausted and ecstatic and grateful all at once, can't make sense of her emotions at all. "There is no way you could pick me up off the floor now."

"Umm, no, we've been through this, don't be ridiculous. You so don't look almost six months gone."

"Are you kidding? I look huge…"

"You do not." Bea rests her head on top of Alicia's, gentle, caring, and it's only as she does so that Alicia realises she must be completely exhausted too. "You never did an obstetrics placement, right? I did. So trust me. You are so far from huge. You just haven't let yourself get your head around it all yet, that's all." She falls quiet for a moment, as though instinctively, she knows Alicia needs a moment to try to take it all in, and then gently, she breaks the silence. "You are going to be such an amazing mammy."

It's all too much, and the flood gates open.

"Hey, hey, that wasn't supposed to make you cry," Bea teases.

"I'm not…" She wipes at her eyes, can't quite put it into words, inexplicable, overwhelming. "I'm happy, it's just…"

"I know, I know, it's alright. It's just a lot to take in, isn't it? And anyway, you're allowed to be over emotional, you're pregnant. I'm allowed to say that now, right?"

Alicia nods, all of a sudden exhausted, drained, relief flooding through her. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I know I've been…"

"Will you stop apologising? We've been through this. You have nothing to apologise for, Alicia. Nothing."

"No, no I do. Seriously, I'm going to be buying you and Ruby drinks for the rest of my life to thank you, and even then…"

Bea laughs. "I mean, I won't be complaining, but you don't have to do that."

"I so do, you and Ruby didn't sign up for living with a screaming baby…"

"Nah, babies are cute, I can totally live with that. Just don't expect me to change the dirty nappies, I'm not doing that part. I'll do the fun bits." She reaches for the box of tissues on Mrs Beauchamp's desk, presses one into her hand. "Everything's going to be alright now, you'll see. It'll all be worth it when you have a baby in your arms."

It suddenly occurs to Alicia that Mrs Beauchamp is still in the room, waiting patiently, silently watching on, and she looks up, flushes, embarrassed. "Thank you. For everything."

"It's quite alright, you don't need to thank me. Obstetrics are expecting you in about fifteen minutes. Call it an unscheduled break. You can take Dr Kinsella with you, if you'd like."

"I can't, that leaves us so understaffed…"

"Yes, you can. We can manage without you both for a while, if that's what you want. The first scan's supposed to be special, if you want to share it with someone, I'm going to facilitate that. I think you deserve that, after everything that's happened."

"Thank you," Alicia tells her sincerely. "I honestly can't thank you enough."

"It's no trouble," Mrs Beauchamp insists. "It's not a problem at all. You might as well head up there now. Make sure you get a MATB1 form from your midwife, alright? I need to put it through the system to arrange your maternity leave. We can talk about that later," she says gently; clearly, Alicia realises, her expression must have made clear just how overwhelmed she's feeling all of a sudden. "You've still got plenty of time to think about what you'd like to do, don't worry. I'll talk you through the options later, I just need your form on file for now. If anyone asks, I'll tell them you're both busy with a patient upstairs." She turns towards the door, heading back out into the ED, smiles. "Oh, and Alicia? Congratulations."

 **I am so, so sorry for the delay with this one. I moved back to the UK earlier this week, so most of the last week I've been busy organising that and haven't had a lot of free time to write. This one was also a really emotional chapter, which didn't help. Thank you so much to 20BlueRoses, guest and theverystuffoflife for reviewing the last chapter, your feedback is always wonderful.**

 **As ever, I am totally undecided over which chapter to give you next. This chapter has actually been cut in half because it was too stupidly long, so I have most of the second half of this one written, or part of the one that would originally have come after parts one and two of this chapter, if that makes any sense. That chapter goes back to the present day storyline. If you have a preference, please feel free to let me know.**

 **Reviews would be wonderful :)**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	16. Chapter 16

**Just before you start: subchorionic haemorrhage is a medical term that refers to the placenta detaching from its original implantation position, usually in early pregnancy. The movement causes bleeding, but small haemorrhages (or hemotomas) aren't usually harmful.**

 **Chapter 16**

"Mammy? Mammy, Mammy…"

 _Shit_ , Alicia groans internally, rolls out of Ethan's arms, hurriedly, mildly panicked, conscious that he needs to sleep, somehow flooded with a great sense of responsibility, as much as she tries to tell herself in that moment that this is _their_ daughter, that Ethan should have known what he was signing up for. _Shit, shit…_

"Chakra?" She whispers, slowly sits upright, cautious, trying to keep her movements subtle as possible, determined not to wake Ethan, sound asleep beside her. "What's wrong, sweetheart?"

Her daughter is silent, and Alicia can't quite make her out in the darkness.

"Nightmare?" Alicia asks softly. "Or just woke up and now you can't sleep? Chakra? I'm going to take you back to bed, sweetheart, okay? We need to get you out of this habit. We forgot to try your tea, didn't we, tomorrow we'll…" She pauses, suddenly aware of that faint, distinct smell with which work has made her all too familiar. "Have you been sick?"

Chakra leans against her, tired, miserable, nods. "Mammy…"

"Okay. Okay, shhh, sweetheart. Ethan's sleeping, okay, we need to be quiet." Alicia pushes herself up off the mattress, picks up her daughter, makes her way slowly, carefully towards the door. If she can just slip out, she figures, slip out without Ethan waking, she'll sleep upstairs with Chakra if she has to…

But it's too late.

"Alicia?" Ethan's voice is groggy, disorientated, calling her from across the room, confused. "You alright? Alicia?"

"Fine," she covers quickly. "I'm fine, we're just… I'll be back in a minute," she tells him hurriedly. "Go back to sleep, I'll be back. Come on, Chak," she says softly, loud enough that Ethan will hear, figures it's the simplest way to offer him an explanation. "Come on, shall we get you some water? Or do you think you're going to be sick again? No? Okay." Alicia sighs softly, winces at the harsh burst of brightness as she turns on the kitchen light, sits Chakra down on the counter as she rummages through the cupboards for a glass, turns on the tap. "Drink it slowly." She holds her hand against her daughter's forehead, frowns. "You don't have a temperature. So you woke up, and then you were sick?"

"In the bathroom."

"Oh, okay." Alicia breathes a sigh of relief that she isn't going to have to spend tomorrow morning searching for the nearest laundrette and stocking up on cleaning products. She pulls Chakra's hair over her shoulder, inspects. This is the ultimate grim parenting job, she considers, the kind of thing she does automatically now, would have turned her nose up at eight years ago. "At least it was in the bathroom. Down the loo?" she asks hopefully. "Good girl. I've trained you well, haven't I? Do you still feel ill?" she tries carefully. "Chakra? Or just anxious?"

"Don't know."

"No? No, it's far too late for decisions, isn't it?" Alicia agrees. "Or too early, I guess. Does your tummy hurt?"

Chakra shakes her head, blinks, eyes closing.

"I know, sweetheart, I know. Shall we get you back to bed? Finish your water, and I'll take you back up. I think you're alright now, aren't you?"

"Can I sleep with you? Mammy?" Chakra wraps her arms around Alicia's neck tightly, clings on, eyes closed.

"Hey, you realise this is night three in a row, right?" Alicia tries. "We need to try and break this cycle, don't we? You're far too big and grown up to be sleeping with me every night. Come on, I'll take you up, you'll be fine…"

"Mammy," Chakra protests tiredly. There's something in her voice, fear, fear most likely brought on by lack of sleep and the disorientation and perhaps a nightmare that awoke her in the first place, and Alicia hasn't the heart or the energy to argue.

Tomorrow night, she tells herself. She'll tackle this tomorrow night.

"Just for tonight, okay? Come on. I think you're pretty much asleep already, aren't you?" Alicia holds her against her chest, paces, rocks her, figures if only she can get Chakra back to sleep before she takes her into her bedroom, perhaps this will all go relatively smoothly.

"Mammy?"

"Hmm?"

"Promise?"

"Hey, I promise. Of course I promise, I wouldn't lie to you, would I? I thought I was done with pacing around the kitchen with you years ago," she teases softly, fully aware Chakra is already drifting back to sleep, hardly hearing her. "Go to sleep, sweetheart. I love you. You're okay. Everything's okay." _Please grow out of this before you're too heavy_ , she sighs to herself, turns off the light, carries her back down the hallway, talks mindlessly, anything to send her back to sleep. "We're going to have to do something about this, aren't we? Mammy's going to make everything better," she promises, aware she's talking to her as though she's still a small baby. "So you need to stop doing this, okay? This is silly, isn't it?"

"Alicia?" Ethan looks up as she enters back through the door, clearly still very much awake. "Alicia, what is it?"

Alicia shakes her head, silent, lowers Chakra down into the middle of the bed. "Welcome to parenthood," she tells him, keeps her voice to a whisper. "Sorry. I tried to get her back up to her own bed, but she wasn't having it, we're going to have to have her in here for tonight. But she's only little, it's not like she takes up a lot of space."

"Is she alright?" Ethan worries. He shuffles away from her slightly, though Alicia suspects his movement has more to do with his still-lingering nervousness, fear, even, around his daughter, than concern over possible infection. "Sorry. Sorry, I don't want to wake her…"

"No idea," Alicia tells him honestly, sighs, brushes Chakra's hair off her pillow as she collapses back into bed, hugs, protective. "You're fine, don't worry. I don't think she was ever fully awake, she went back to sleep pretty quickly. She's slept in the staff room, before, only when I've had to leave her in there, obviously, but if she can sleep through all the noise in there, she can sleep through anything. She's just vomited," she explains, not entirely sure why she feels so apologetic; she's Ethan's daughter too, after all. 'Temperature's normal. She's fine, she's not contagious. She's… she's been doing this a lot lately," Alicia admits reluctantly. "She's been referred, I thought it was… because of… because of the exomphalos, she's… you know. Increased risk of digestive problems. But she's fine. There's nothing. Makes sense, really, she's been fine until now, she hasn't had problems with digestion since she was in NICU. So Paeds are thinking psychological. Given it came on around the same time we moved, and she developed a bit of a thing about school. She's had a CAMHS assessment, we're waiting on the verdict."

It's not the truth, not in its entirety.

There's so much she still needs to find a way to tell him, somehow.

But at least it's a start.

"She…" Ethan stammers, and even through the darkness, Alicia can see the pain in his eyes. "She's so anxious she's… she's making herself sick?"

"Well, no one's suggested bulimia, it seems to be more of a physical reaction. But yes."

"I should go," Ethan blurts out anxiously. "I should go, you're saying she's so anxious she's vomited…"

Her expression softens. She should have known, Alicia curses herself, she should have known Ethan would jump to this conclusion. "It's not you," she tells him gently. "Honestly, Ethan. It's not you."

"You don't know that, maybe it's all been too much for her, maybe…"

"Yes, Ethan. Yes, I do know that. Believe me, it's not you. She's totally relaxed around you. I mean, she usually warms to adults pretty quickly, but trust me, not this quickly. She likes you. You're going to be one of her favourite people. And she almost always does this when she's worrying about school. She's still got the best part of a week before she has to go back and we've already had tears. That's what this will be about. Honestly."

"She said that?"

"No, but I don't need her to. I know. She was barely awake, anyway, it's much better to just get her back to sleep and deal with it in the morning. If she even remembers in the morning. Sometimes she doesn't." She closes her eyes, despairing just a little, strokes her daughter's hair. "She's quite sweet when she's sleeping, isn't she?" she teases. "Not so much when she's waking me up to tell me she's vomited. I don't know what the solution is," she admits, can't quite meet Ethan's eyes because it feels as though she's failed him, too, failed to look after his daughter adequately. "I really don't know what to do with her. She won't ever tell me what it is about school that's so awful, but it's clearly something. There's a girl in her class, Sophia. She keeps telling me things Sophia's said to her, and don't get me wrong, that girl is a nasty piece of work, but nothing she's told me quite explains why she gets this upset." She stops, suddenly aware that it's the middle of the night, that poor Ethan is only aware because of her and Chakra. "Sorry. Sorry, you need to sleep…"

"It's fine," Ethan insists. "It's fine, I'm still a bit of an insomniac. I mean, I sleep more nowadays…" he pauses, awkward, resentful. "It's fine. She's more important. So what… what happens now? If she's had a CAMHS assessment, I mean…"

"I don't know," Alicia tells him honestly. "I don't know yet. Depends on their report, really. I've thought about moving her to a different school, but it's not that simple, you have to go through a whole long complicated process trying to persuade the local authority to let you switch. It was bad enough in August when we moved back to Holby, I'm not sure I've got the energy to go through all that again. I could send her to private school now, I guess, I could afford it now I'm a consultant. But… I don't know. I'm not convinced. I can't make a decision yet, really, it completely depends what CAMHS say. I don't think her school have made much effort with her. I don't want special treatment for her, or anything, but… I don't know. I think they probably have me down as one of those awkward demanding parents. Sorry. Sorry, I know it's far too late to be having this conversation."

"It's alright. I should have been here." Ethan reaches out cautiously in the darkness, finds Alicia's hand, draped over Chakra's sleeping form. He's nervous, Alicia realises. He's relaxed a little, but he's still nervous; what's completely normal for her is still alien, unnerving for him. "You're not awkward and demanding."

She smiles, despite everything. "You haven't seen some of the angry emails I've sent her teacher. I mean, it's just not helpful, is it, refusing to acknowledge there's a problem. They just keep saying they haven't noticed any bullying and I need to just leave her at the gates and she'll magically go in by herself and be fine. They keep telling me it's separation anxiety, which is a load of utter crap. School's the only place she has a total meltdown at the thought of going by herself. She didn't know anyone at her new gym place either, but she didn't seem to mind that, I can't ever drag her away from gym. And Bea kidnapped her and took her to an Irish dancing class a few months back, and she loved that, she was totally unfazed, came home begging to invite half the other kids back for a sleepover. I doubt she properly remembered most of the guys at work when we first moved back, but she was quite happy to go home with Elle a couple of weeks in, I got held up in resus. There's no way she has separation anxiety. I mean, I know she's pretty clingy right now, but this isn't normal for her. Usually she does actually sleep in her own bed." She sighs heavily, grips Ethan's hand, tries to block out the slight tremor, far slighter than she had feared it might be after eight years but still most definitely there. "Sorry. Sorry, you need to rest, you don't need this."

"Alicia. Alicia, listen." Ethan cups his other hand over hers. "We can do this together, from now on," he says softly. "You don't have to do everything by yourself anymore. I know… I know there's a limit to how much I can do, now," he admits painfully. "I know that. I know it's going to get worse. But I'm… I'm not aggressive, Alicia. I swear I'm not. Maybe that will come later, I don't know, I try not to think about that. But my consultant… he thinks it's rather unusual to have gone eight years with no aggressive symptoms. The moment that changes, I'm gone, I promise. I wouldn't ever put Chakra through that. But you were right, you were right all along. I was… well, you know, it wasn't all about whether she was going to have Huntington's, for me, I thought… it was awful timing, right when my symptoms started… I thought I wasn't going to be able to be her father, I thought I'd just keep getting worse. After that day, after what happened, I was so sure I was going to be a danger to her, if she was negative, to you both, and I couldn't… I was wrong. I got that so, so wrong, I realise that now. And I know I can't make up for all the years I've missed, for you, more than anything. Chakra's missed out on having a father, obviously, I get that, but it's all she's ever known, and there's no doubt she has an amazing mum, I just… You shouldn't have had to be a single mother for the best part of eight years. I did that to you, and I'm so sorry. But I want to change that now, if you'll let me. I… I know it's early days, for us. I don't know how this can work. But I don't really need to be down here, not really. I don't need to be in a clinic yet, for me it was more… I was already in touch with this place, I'd started looking at options, once I realised what was happening. It was before I told you, I'm sorry, I know I should have told you. It just made me feel more in control, I guess, knowing what the options were, once I reached that point. It was only meant to be preliminary. But then… after what happened… I thought it was for the best, I thought the only choice I had was to shut myself away, so I couldn't do any more damage…"

"It wasn't your fault, Ethan." Alicia doesn't need any further confirmation to understand, not now. "You can't blame yourself, it wasn't your fault. It was a total freak accident…"

Ethan shakes his head, adamant. "No. No, you can't say that, you know what happened…"

"Exactly. We were already starting to realise you were progressing faster than we'd thought, weren't we? We were stupid, we were distracted by the whole pregnancy thing, we should have been more proactive getting you assessed properly. You can't blame yourself."

"But I was the one who…"

"I know. I know, but I shouldn't have been so close to the stairs, either. It was no one's fault, Ethan, we can play the blame game all day. It's going to get us nowhere. I'm fine," she tells him. "I'm fine, Chakra's fine. You can't keep torturing yourself with the what ifs. Apart from the whole school anxiety thing, she's fine- perfect, really. That's a total miracle in itself, with exomphalos. Well, you know that."

"I can't even imagine…" Ethan shudders. "You found out at the anomaly scan, right? It wasn't detected before…"

"I didn't have a scan before then," Alicia admits. "I was supposed to have the first one, that week, and then…"

"I remember. You must have been admitted…"

"It wasn't as bad as you think," Alicia tells him gently. "It really wasn't. Mrs Beauchamp kept me in overnight, but I think that was a precaution, more than anything, just in case… I think she was more worried I'd miscarry." She's reluctant to put that last part into words, knows it's only going to make it all the more real for Ethan, knows he's only going to blame himself all over again.

"I still can't believe… don't get me wrong, I'm so glad you're both alright. But I was so convinced it would be worse than that, I thought…"

"Ethan." Maybe she needs a different approach, maybe she needs to just spell out all the details for him, maybe it's the uncertainty, the not knowing, that's been eating away at him all this time. Maybe he'll finally be able to move on if only she lets him in. "What you saw… it really wasn't as bad as it looked. That was it. No more blood, scan looked fine, apparently- I didn't see it. Heartrate fine. There were never any signs of miscarriage, not really. Subchorionic haemorrhage," she tells him. "That was all. It had probably started well beforehand. So in a strange sort of way, it was probably just as well. I might not have realised if… if that, hadn't happened. Mrs Beauchamp kept me in overnight, she gave me progesterone, everything was fine. It was small. It wasn't you, Ethan. Whichever way you look at it, it wasn't you. I dislocated my elbow, but it was my left, it was already weak, after last time. And I had some pretty impressive bruises for a while, but Mrs Beauchamp warned obstetrics about that, they never said anything. But that's everything, Ethan. That's absolutely everything. None of it was you, what you saw…"

"Yes, it was. Fair enough, so you were already haemorrhaging, but you've just told me I dislocated your elbow…"

"No, you didn't. It wasn't you, Ethan. You need to stop holding yourself responsible. Even if you had, I'd take a dislocated elbow any day, given it meant Mrs Beauchamp caught the haemorrhage in time." She glances down at Chakra, sound asleep. "If you want a competition over who messed our daughter up the most before she was even born, you aren't going to win. Believe me. That award's well and truly mine. I pretty much got slaughtered when I finally had a midwife appointment."

"Alicia…"

"No, no listen. You always did tell me to quit smoking, I should have listened to you long before I was putting our baby at risk. You know there's an increased risk of exomphalos with maternal smoking, if I'd only…"

"Oh, come on, you have what, one every few weeks, after a bad shift? You can't do that to yourself. We're never going to know, either way, most likely it was just one of those things. There's no point going there. Your midwife had no right to say…"

"She didn't. Not about that. I… she was measuring small, too small, the whole way through, I… I wasn't really eating, not before I got her results, and it didn't really get better after the exomphalos, I was so stressed. They kept telling me she was going to be underweight at birth if I didn't pull myself together and they were right, she wouldn't have been so ill when she was born if she hadn't been so tiny. She might have been suitable for a full repair straight away, she might have been feeding properly sooner…"

"You can't blame yourself," Ethan murmurs. "You were under a ridiculous amount of pressure. Everything with the prenatal diagnosis, the wait… to have to go from that straight to exomphalos… I can't imagine it," he admits shakily. "She's my daughter and I can't imagine it, I know how ridiculous that is. I should have been there. You shouldn't have had to do it all by yourself. But you've done amazingly, Alicia. You really have. People struggle with an exomphalos diagnosis at the best of times, let alone under the circumstances I left you in. I don't blame you, darling. I couldn't ever blame you, it's so clear how much you love her. I know you would have done the best you could. It was an awful situation, that's all. You can't blame yourself for struggling in an awful situation."

"That's exactly what I'm trying to say, Ethan," Alicia tells him gently. She squeezes his hand, closes her eyes, sleep reclaiming her. "We can play the blame game forever. Believe me, I've been there, I've tried that. It didn't help. But she's here, she's healthy, she's perfect. There's no point thinking about what if. What if doesn't matter anymore." She yawns, loosens her grip on his hand just a little, exhaustion. "We should sleep. Sorry. Sorry, I should have let you sleep ages ago…"

"No. No, it's alright. I'm glad you told me," Ethan whispers. "Sleep. Okay? Forget about it all for now. You're not on your own anymore," he tells her, brushes her hair away from her face, hand lingers on her cheek, just for a moment. Never again. I promise. Never again."

 **Thank you, thank you, thank you as ever for your wonderful kind reviews, I am honestly still so overwhelmed by all your support. To my guest reviewer who wanted to see the stair incident- it's coming, I promise! It's just not quite the right moment yet, but hopefully this was a compromise :) There are a few more hints in this one as to what Alicia isn't telling Ethan, I think you might be able to put it all together at this point, but it's hard to tell from the writer's perspective!**

 **Please do keep reviewing, hearing your thoughts honestly makes me so, so happy. I'm planning for the pace to pick up a bit from the next chapter. And I haven't totally finalised the ending yet, so if you have any thoughts on happy vs bitter ending for Ethan and Alicia, please feel free to tell me! ;)**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	17. Chapter 17

**So a few weeks ago I asked you all Bea or Ruby, and it was actually 50/50. So this is the first of two bonus chapters I'm writing, one for each of them. And this one is especially for Beth- I hope you feel better soon!**

 **Exomphalos is usually not treated immediately after birth, if the membrane covering the organs is intact and the baby is relatively stable. If the membrane is ruptured, or there are other complications, the baby is usually operated on immediately. If the exomphalos is too big for full repair, a staged repair is used- basically, surgery is performed to attach mesh over the organs, and this is tightened every few days until the organs are back inside the body.**

 **Meabh is one of the warrior queens in Irish mythology. To cut a very long story short, she brutally murders her sister Eithne so she can be the one to became queen of one of the old Irish kingdoms. She hangs onto the throne despite various challenges to her rule, and is basically pretty cool to be named after in a brutal, feminist mythology kind of way. You've probably already worked out that I like Celtic mythology!**

 **Sadhbh Ní Bhruinnealla is a really beautiful, stupidly catchy Irish folk song, about a boatman trying to convince his girlfriend to elope with him. I recommend the Eabha McMahon version (Sadhbh Ní Bhruinneallaigh)** **but there are lots on youtube. I first heard this one at a Celtic festival and I was told by the singer it's a popular one at weddings in Irish-speaking parts of Ireland, so if I'm wrong, blame him, not me!**

 **Chapter 17**

 **Day One**

"Right, Miss Shakalaka. I can't call you that, can I, your mammy's going to kill me. Least people would know how to pronounce your name then, though, wouldn't they? You can blame your mammy and Auntie Ruby when you're spending half your life correcting people, I had nothing to do with it. I wanted to call you Meabh, but Mammy didn't like that. Irish warrior queen. And I know, you would have been correcting that pronunciation anyway, but who doesn't want to be named after a warrior queen, right? It's a reasonable trade off. I think so, anyway. But listen, so we're going to play a game, okay? You listening? We're going to see who can get discharged first, you or your mammy. I think Mammy's probably going to win that one, but you better put up a good fight. Just not too good a fight, okay? You need to stay in here long enough for your Auntie Ruby and me to work out how to assemble your cot, flat packed furniture really isn't our forte. Or resort to getting someone round to do it, if it's a disaster. Ruby has Jan down as someone good with DIY, but we're going to give it a go ourselves first. We can't have the whole ambulance station laughing at us when there was no need, can we? And we need to get some cute photos of you, don't we, so I can send them to Auntie Ruby and she can show Mammy how adorable you are when she comes round."

She fumbles with her phone, does her best to crop out the tubes and the wires, too much equipment for such a tiny baby. "You look _so_ much like your mammy. Don't you, hey? You are just as gorgeous as your mammy. We need to try and get you off that horrible machine before Mammy comes up to see you, don't we? I promised her I wouldn't let the doctors intubate you unless it was totally necessary, so you're going to have to back me up, okay? I think we have a pretty good reason. You're doing so well now, aren't you? You're being such a brave girl. I know I'm not Mammy, but I'm going to stay with you until Mammy's well enough to come and see you. Promise. So if anyone asks, Auntie Bea's your favourite auntie. You got that? Auntie Bea. Auntie Bea's your favourite. I'm going to be the best auntie ever, okay? I'm going to give you all the sweets Mammy won't let you have, for starters. Mammy's going to have you on that awful stuff that's supposed to taste like chocolate but actually tastes like dried fruit and too much water with a hint of cocoa, I can't have that on my conscience. And I'll let you stay up late, every time I babysit. I'll get you all the Disney classics on DVD. And once you're old enough I'll introduce you to Celtic rock, you're going to love it. We'll start by indoctrinating you with folk songs though, okay? Your mammy can't argue with that, I'm totally not a bad influence, hearing another language from birth is supposed to make you crazy intelligent. Or something like that, anyway. So when you, I don't know, cure cancer or end world hunger, or something, you'll have me to thank for your brilliance."

Bea sighs heavily, closes her eyes for a moment, blinks, holds her hand against the plastic of the incubator. "Chakra," she says softly, trying it out. "Chakra, I don't have a clue what I'm doing, lovely, so we're just going to have to work this out together. Okay? What do you reckon, can we do that? I know everything's a bit scary and confusing right now, but it's not going to be like this forever. We need to get you something that smells like Mammy," she decides, casts her mind back to the Obstetrics placement she wishes she had paid more attention to now. "Do you think? I'm pretty sure that's a thing, we can get you something that smells like Mammy and then everything won't seem so scary. Shall we ask Auntie Ruby? Yeah?" She pulls out her phone, texts one handed. "I've tried calling your daddy, no luck so far. I think the whole ED's tried calling your daddy, he's either turned off his phone, he's blocked us all or we've seriously pissed him off."

She pauses, blushes. "Don't tell your mammy I said that word, okay? That's a bad word. So we'll see if we can get Daddy to come and see you two, but I can't make any promises. Men are overrated, Chakra. Some of them are alright, but most men are overrated. We can have that conversation when you're a bit older. It's his loss, okay sweetheart? If he doesn't show up, it's his loss. You've got plenty of people who love you lots and lots. You'll see. I think you might be meeting Nana and Granddad tomorrow, or the day after, if we can persuade the nurses to let them in here. Well, and if they get here. That's exciting, isn't it? We've left them lots of messages, so we'll just have to wait now, won't we? They're off cruising the Mediterranean trying to rekindle their love for one another, except I don't think your mammy's too convinced. 'His sexual orientation isn't a midlife crisis,' I think she told your Nana. And something about how no one has a decade long midlife crisis, anyway. She thinks he only wants to get back with your nana because him and Martin have hit a rocky patch. Turns out actually living together in a relationship that's out in the open is a whole lot more intense than a long-term affair with your nana doing all the cooking and the housework. I'm not really selling this to you, am I, Chakra? They're going to love you so much, sweetheart, I promise. How could anyone not love you, hey? They just might have to love you very, very separately, if your mammy's right about their not-so-romantic getaway."

The vitals monitor bleeps rhythmically, steadily, reassuring.

"You are doing _so_ well, aren't you? We'll have you breathing by yourself soon and everything. You just need to be brave for a little bit longer, I know it's not very nice. And then the doctors up here can get you into surgery and make you better, and then you just need to learn how to feed by yourself and Mammy can bring you home, okay? It won't be long. But you better not scream the place down when we get you home. You're going to be a brilliant sleeper. Okay? You promise? I'm in the room next to Mammy, so you better not scream all night. If you scream all night, you're sleeping in the shed."

Alicia's baby lies still, lifeless, unresponsive.

"Hey, I'm just kidding. I'll love you even if you scream all night. Or if you scream all day. Night shifts are the worst. In fact, I kind of wish you were screaming right now, because you look a little bit scary like this. I think you'll feel better once Mammy's well enough to come and see you, won't you? I mean, obviously I'm great and everything, but I'm no substitute for Mammy. Am I doing this right, Chakra?" Bea sighs, unsure, completely out of her depth. "I have no idea if I'm doing this right. I don't really have much experience with babies. Babies who aren't my patients, anyway. You're pretty cute, even if you're a bit see-through, but I have no idea how to talk to you. You probably can't hear me anyway, though, can you? Maybe I shouldn't worry." Her phone vibrates in her hands, and she pauses, unlocks the screen. "Mammy isn't awake just yet, but Auntie Ruby says you're beautiful, and you've got your mammy's cheeks." She peers into the incubator, frowns. "Maybe? Auntie Ruby's much more observant than I am, I think you're still too little to tell. We'll have to see what Nana and Granddad think, won't we, Chakra? Nana and Granddad are the experts." She glances across at the vitals monitor, mentally scans.

"Well, your blood pressure looks better. I was terrified you were heading into sepsis territory, earlier, but I think you were just really fed up with us, weren't you? I don't blame you, it was all a bit messy. I was kind of hoping my first delivery would be, you know, a bit less like a war zone. They never let me in the delivery room, when I did my obstetrics placement. I didn't tell your Mammy that, obviously, I thought it was probably for the best." Bea shudders a little, her mind wandering back to those awful few minutes. "Oh good god, we're going to have to rip up the carpet, aren't we? Talk about making an entrance. That carpet's probably beyond help, I don't think Auntie Ruby's natural cleaning crap is going to cut it. Don't tell Mammy I taught you that word either, okay? That's another bad one." She trails off, lost, no direction. "Shall we try some folk songs, then? My dad used to sing me this one, when I was little. Before he turned to drink, anyway. We're going to be a house full of girls with daddy issues, aren't we, us four. I don't think I've ever heard Auntie Ruby mention her dad, now I think about it. You'll fit right in.

"So this one's called Sadhbh Ní Bruinnealla, okay? You paying attention? We sing this one at weddings. It's about a guy declaring his love for Sadhbh Ní Bhruinnealla, that's his girlfriend. It's a bit of a mouthful. Just don't ask me what any of it literally means, that's the first rule of Irish folk songs. None of us know what any of it actually means."

 _"Ní iarrfainn bó spré le Sadhbh Ní Bhruinnealla,_

 _Ach Baile Inis Gé is cead éalú ar choinníní,_

 _Óra a Sadhbh, a Sadhbh Ní Bhruinnealla,_

 _A chuisle is a stórirín, éalaigh is imigh liom."_

She sings quietly, self-conscious, still rather conscious that she shouldn't really be in here, bending the rules well and truly.

 _"Máistir báid mhóir mé,_

 _a' gabháil ród na Gaillimhe,_

 _D'fhliuchfainn naoi bhfód_

 _is ní thóigfinn aon fharraige."_

She stops, sighs. "Do you know I'm here, Chakra? I'm not totally convinced you do. I'm not going anywhere, don't worry. You're stuck with me and my terrible singing either way." She glances around the room, absentminded, desperate. "We're going to have to get you some decoration, aren't we? We can't have all the other inmates having stuffed animals and not you. Mammy's got one for you at home somewhere, I'll have to see if I can find it later. I hope you like elephants. I need to find someone to come and sit with you first, though, I'm not leaving you by yourself. Who do you reckon?" she wonders out loud, all too aware she's essentially talking to herself at this point. "Not Rash. I think Rash is a little bit scared of you, isn't he? Well, not of you. It's not so much he's scared of you, it's just your mammy's still his mentor, and he gets a bit jumpy. I think he's terrified of being responsible for you. And he's not exactly great with kids at the best of times. I mean, it wouldn't be his fault… you're very poorly still, aren't you, we wouldn't hold Rash responsible if you went downhill again, would we? That wouldn't be fair. But that isn't going to happen, lovely, you're going to keep being brave until we can get you into surgery and close you up, okay? A week, Mr Barling said, probably a week before he can take you back in for full repair. Maybe two. Remember? Course you don't," Bea realises, despondent. "Of course you don't, you haven't got a clue what I'm saying have you? No, you haven't."

She's strayed well and truly into baby speak now, desperate for a reaction she knows rationally she isn't going to get. "Chakra?" Bea reaches in through the side of the incubator, slowly, gently, takes hold of tiny fingers, fragile, translucent. "It's going to be alright, sweetheart, you'll see."

"She won't like that," one of the NICU nurses warns her gently. "That's too much stimulation for her, it's best not to touch her and talk to her at the same time."

"Sorry, sorry." She pulls her hand away frantically, mild panic rising within her because she's so tiny, so tiny and fragile and not hers to damage, and that makes it all the more terrifying. "Sorry. I'm not her mam, I'm just standing in for her, don't know what I'm doing, really…"

"You're doing fine. She's relatively stable, for now, if you'd like to take a break. You came in the ambulance with her, didn't you? I can make sure you're told if there's any change…"

Bea shakes her head firmly. "No. No, I promised her mam I wouldn't let her out of my sight. Thank you. But I'm fine. I got a break while she was in surgery, anyway." She frowns, head a mess, the events of the last few hours all something of a blur. "So we've ruled out an infection?"

"For now, yes. It's still early days, but her vitals are improving. The consultant will be round to examine her later."

Bea nods. "Okay. And we're sure there's nothing else? I know the risks, with exomphalos, her mam's been very worried about…"

"She's showing no signs of any complications. We'll continue monitoring her heartrate, but right now she's doing fine. It's not uncommon for babies Chakra's size to need ventilation, even without exomphalos."

She stares at the baby, part of Alicia, until a few hours ago, should be part of her still, too soon for all this. "I promised her mam. I promised I wouldn't let her be intubated unless it was absolutely necessary…"

"Exactly," the NICU nurse tells her gently. "Unless absolutely necessary. She's stable, now. Had we held off on surgery, it would have been a very different story."

Bea smiles, grateful for the reassurance. "Thank you. I understand the basics, obviously, this is all just so different…"

"I know. I know, I understand. She's coping better than expected for now, she's stable. Mr Barling's confident we're on top of the risk of infection. I'll be back in a bit to check on her again."

She watches intently for the next few minutes, eyes fixed on the vitals monitor, reaches through again to place her finger across Alicia's daughter's tiny palm, silent this time.

If Chakra's aware, if she knows what Bea is hoping she'll do, she doesn't cooperate.

She pulls back her hand, despondent. "Fair enough. We don't have to do the finger holding thing if you don't want to. I'm warning you, though, if I swap with Auntie Ruby later and I find out you've been holding her finger, I'll be offended. I'm your favourite, remember? Chakra? If you want to hold Mammy's finger when she's well enough to come and visit that's a different issue, but if you do it for Auntie Ruby, we'll be having words. I'm joking, sweetheart. You do whatever you want, you'll still be my favourite honorary niece. I want lots of cuddles though, when you're feeling better. There's no point my best friend having a baby if I don't get lots of cuddles with you, is there? You are so gorgeous. Well, you're a little bit grey at the moment, but you're still gorgeous. Aren't you? Now, you mustn't get too excited yet, okay, I think it's a little bit too early to get excited. But. I reckon you're going to be in the exclusive redhead club, aren't you? Or you are right now, anyway, we'll have to see if you keep it. We'll have to ask Auntie Ruby what she thinks, Auntie Ruby's good at these things. We're going to do a swap later, okay, Auntie Ruby's going to come up here and keep you company and I'm going to go and sit with your mammy for a bit. And then you can meet Auntie Ruby properly. I'm not sure we can count earlier, we were too busy trying to get you breathing, weren't we? You're going to love…"

Bea trails off, looks up, as the door swings open, hurried footsteps, frantic murmuring.

"Bea?" Elle rushes over, dishevelled, expression grim. "How is she?"

"She's okay." Bea frowns, confused. "She's stable, anyway, she's coping…"

"Okay. Okay, listen, I'm going to take over here. Alicia's awake," she explains, drops her handbag to the floor. "Ruby's updated her, she's shown her the messages you sent but she's not having it, she wants to speak to you. Well, she's insisting we bring her up here, actually, but that's out of the question at the moment. Mrs Beauchamp's hoping if we can reassure her Chakra's doing fine, we might be able to keep her in recovery until she's actually got the strength to hold herself upright."

"On it." She's shattered, hasn't slept, came straight in from work and into the chaos of accidental home delivery and until that moment she was half-asleep, but now Bea springs into action, alert, urgent. "Is she alright?"

Elle grimaces. "She's disorientated, her blood pressure's at rock bottom, she's clearly in a lot of pain but she's refusing anything other than enough morphine to just about keep her conscious…"

Bea groans. "Why? I'll talk to her, she's still got a bit of a thing about loss of control…"

"It's not that. She knows she can't breastfeed on tramadol, and she's refusing to go anywhere near the maximum morphine we can give her safely. Talk about erring on the side of caution."

"She does realise she has a TPN dependent baby…"

"I know, I know. We've told her that. She knows she's got a couple of weeks before Chakra's going to be ready for naso-gastric, it's not helping. Just told me she wanted me to find her a pump, she's paranoid her milk supply will dry up. She's got a few days before that happens she could feel the benefits of the tramadol, but I've given up, there's no reasoning with her. She's just upset, it's one thing she can do from recovery and she's latching onto it. Or she thinks it's one thing she can do, anyway. My shift's just finished, Blake and Luca can survive without me for a while. If I sit with Chakra, are you okay to go down and try to talk some sense into Alicia?"

Bea nods. "Sure. She's… well, she's not quite comatose, but she's not far off, either. They had to ventilate her, obviously, for surgery, they seem to think it's best she stays on it for now. So she's pretty low maintenance, really. Text me if there's any change, yeah?"

"Sure. We'll be fine, won't we, sweetie?" Elle switches places with Bea, glances across. "She looks so much like Alicia." She frowns, expression softens. "Anything from Ethan?"

Bea shakes her head. "Not yet. I don't think there's going to be anything at this point, realistically." She sighs, defeated. "I don't know if Alicia's got her head around that yet. Well, she seems to have, but single parenthood's going to put a whole different spin on it, isn't it? Let alone single parenthood with a preemie."

"She'll be alright. The first few weeks are always the hardest, once we get her through that, she'll be fine. She's strong. It's Ethan's loss. If he can't be bothered to pick up the phone and take some responsibility, that's his problem. They don't need him." Elle pauses, cautious. "Do you know what happened?" she asks carefully. "I just don't understand it. It was obvious they were crazy about each other, and yes, there was clearly something wrong those last couple of weeks, but… I don't know. It's none of my business, obviously, but I kind of assumed he didn't feel ready for a baby. Which I get. They hadn't been back together that long, had they, all things consideredt. Probably not long enough to have been planning on starting a family just yet, anyway. I get it. He wouldn't be the first man to panic at the prospect of fatherhood. But Ethan… it's just so out of character, isn't it? I don't get it. Cal, maybe, now Cal, I can believe it of. You never knew Cal, did you? But I just… this isn't Ethan, it doesn't make any sense. Even if he felt things were over with him and Alicia- and I don't believe that, not in the slightest- it's all just so out of character. End things with her, fine, but I never had him down as someone capable of walking out on his child. She hasn't said anything, has she?"

"Not really," Bea lies. "I don't know. I agree, it's not Ethan. But she's heard nothing, nothing at all from him since he walked out. Well, one phone call, and he made it pretty clear he didn't want her going looking for him. She was in pieces, Elle. And his flat's up for sale. Ruby and I even tried to get his details off the estate agent, but they weren't having any of it. We've got no idea where he is, and I think that's the way he wants it. He's not coming back at this point, I think that's pretty clear." She fidgets awkwardly, never was good at lying. "I should probably go and calm her down…"

Elle nods. "Sorry. Of course. I can hang around as long as you need, okay? Take your time."

 **Again, I'm so sorry for the delay with this one, I've been away this week and haven't really had the space and the time to properly write. Hopefully the next update will be faster! To my Atoms reviewers this week, just in case you read here too, I promise there is also an Atoms update on the way :)**

 **I would love to know your thoughts on this one, you are completely allowed to tell me you didn't like it! I know it's a bit different. And thank you so much to 20BlueRoses, TheVeryStuffOfLife and my two guests for reviewing the last chapter, your support means the world.**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	18. Chapter 18

**Thank you as ever to my reviewers, guest and 20blueroses. You are wonderful, wonderful people, and your kind words have made the worst week ever a little bit better.**

 **This one is a bit of a monster of a chapter- I apologise in advance for the length!**

 **Chapter 18**

 ** _22 weeks_**

It doesn't feel quite how Alicia envisaged it would, heading up to obstetrics again.

She had imagined it would be a completely different experience to her first visit, in the event of good news. She had thought she would feel completely at ease coming up here, knowing there was nothing wrong, that she would finally be able to get excited, happy, less self-conscious.

Perhaps it's because of the last time, the prenatal diagnosis, because she overheard enough of Mrs Beauchamp's conversation with her midwife that day to know she wasn't exactly impressed with her refusal to engage with prenatal appointments, regardless of her friendlier manner in front of Alicia. Or perhaps it's because she's spent almost the entirety of this pregnancy until now in a state of denial and avoidance in the name of self-preservation, or because she's come to associate anything connected to it with crippling fear, confliction, emotional torment. Alicia isn't sure. But somehow, for whatever reason, that same all-too familiar feeling of nausea and panic floods through her the moment they enter the department.

She needs to pull herself together. She's supposed to be happy; she _is_ happy. It's hard to explain. It's almost as though she can't quite accept it; not yet, as though she needs time to process it, too used to living in limbo, afraid to get attached, to acknowledge it's happening.

Ethan's absence, of course, inevitably isn't helping matters.

It shouldn't have been like this. This should have been weeks ago, this first scan, she and Ethan should have gone together. She would have already made the announcement at work, wouldn't have had to fail at hiding the painfully obvious, she would have told her parents, she and Ethan might even have started baby shopping, picked a name…

This isn't how Alicia ever managed it would be.

She almost can't allow herself to believe it's true, Alicia decides as they wait in the queue at reception, suddenly tense and she's no idea why.

Maybe it will be different, once she's seen it, her baby.

All of a sudden, that doesn't feel quite so strange to say, to herself, at least.

"It's alright." Bea must have sensed her anxiety, places her hand on the small of Alicia's back, pushes her forwards, as they reach the front of the queue. "Do you want me to do this part?"

Alicia nods gratefully. "Do you mind? I just…"

"Course I don't." Bea squeezes her hand, leads her up to the reception desk. "Hi. Alicia Munroe, she has an appointment at 9.30?"

It's only as she follows Bea through into the cubicle, dazed, that Alicia realises she can't remember her midwife's name.

"Alicia, hi." She recognises the woman in the doorway waiting to greet them, frantically scans the name badge. Sorcha; there's a vague recollection in the back of Alicia's mind, but only vague, as though she's somehow erased most of that awful prenatal diagnosis appointment from her memory. "I'll be with you in just a moment, alright? Make yourself comfortable on the examination table, I won't be long."

"You know you're allowed to relax, right?" Bea teases her gently, taking a seat beside her. "This really won't be that bad."

"Will they…" She can feel the familiar panic rising within her, unexpected but overwhelming, too ashamed to explain. "I have no experience with obstetrics whatsoever, do they just…"

It's been almost two years, but still it's too much to bear at times.

"Just?" Bea frowns. "I think they're just going to do a scan. Usually this would be an anomaly scan, at this stage, but I guess they'll do a regular scan if you don't want that one, since this is your first. I'm not too sure, it's been a long time since I was last in obstetrics. And they'll have to go through all the first appointment stuff, just because they haven't seen you before. But Mrs Beauchamp did some of that, right, she did your due date? So there probably isn't that much for them to do, thinking about it."

"But… they won't…"

"Won't what? Alicia?" Bea, to her credit, has always been remarkably good at reading these situations, right from her first distraught confession in the ED staffroom, so long ago now.

"I don't want them to… touch me." She winces at the thought, panicked, curses herself for only having thought of this now, realised the potential issue. "I can't… I can't cope with…"

"Oh, okay. Okay." Bea glances at the doorway worriedly. "But… they must have… last time?"

She shakes her head. "It was just an ultrasound, and it was brief, really brief, and then a needle, I can deal with needles, I just can't…"

"Okay. Okay, breathe. I'll explain, alright? Briefly, I'll explain. They'll have seen it all before, Alicia, it'll be fine. It'll all be fine."

Alicia tenses, frustrated. "I just want to be normal, I just want _something_ about this whole thing to be normal…"

"And it will be, Alicia, it's going to get better from here. It really will. Plenty of women struggle with this after sexual assault, it's normal. That I do remember from my obstetrics placement. So stop worrying, okay? It's going to be fine." She looks up, smiles as Alicia's midwife re-enters the room. "Hi. I'm Bea, I'm Alicia's friend. She's a little anxious…" she glances back across to Alicia, checking for permission. "I don't know if you've had the chance to review her whole medical history yet. She was raped, almost two years ago now, thrown through a window by her attacker eighteen months ago. She's made a fantastic recovery, all things considered, but she's still struggling with physical contact, examinations… you know the kind of thing. It's probably not helped that her whole pregnancy has been so… well, non-standard, so far. I know you have to do what you have to do and everything, I get that, but if you could just, you know, go easy on her. She's had rather a traumatic few weeks, as you know, as if she needed anything else to be coping with."

Her midwife- Sorcha- nods gravely, sympathetic. "Okay. Okay, that's okay. We can work around it." She frowns slightly. "But you were alright last time, with the ultrasound?"

"I just don't want…" Alicia shakes her head, closes her eyes, suddenly dizzy.

It's been almost two years, and still even she can't make sense of the invisible line that exists in her head and exactly where it falls and why; how on earth is anyone else supposed to?

"I don't mind equipment," she tries again, unsure if she's making the slightest bit of sense. "I just can't deal with… he… when he…"

"It's alright. It's alright, I understand. I'll try to make this as painless as I can for you," her midwife promises. "We'll start with the ultrasound, take it from there. This is a bit unusual, to be having the first appointment…"

"I know that," Alicia snaps, tense, apprehensive, struggling. "Sorry. Sorry, I just…"

"It's alright. I know this hasn't been easy. From your notes, it looks as though Mrs Beauchamp more or less did a booking in appointment for you when she confirmed your pregnancy down in the ED. The medical side, at least. So it's your first pregnancy? And Mrs Beauchamp estimated a due date of 11thJune, is that right? Twenty-two weeks as of this week? Okay. I don't need to ask about genetic history, your prenatal diagnosis results came back perfect. Now, you know this appointment would be the anomaly scan, don't you? Have you decided if that's something you'd like? It's up to you, if not I can just do a regular ultrasound for you, given the circumstances."

"I…" It's not, in all honesty, not something Alicia has given the slightest thought to at all. She's been so preoccupied until now with the wait for the results of the prenatal diagnosis, unable to see past that point, that she's hardly devoted any thought to the possibility of a happy ending, not really. She's suddenly aware of Bea squeezing her hand, gentle pressure, grounding her, reassuring, buys her time to think. "I think I would," she decides at last. "I just, you know… I just want to know everything's alright, after…"

"Of course. Of course, I understand. We can do an anomaly scan." Sorcha skims through Alicia's notes, turns the pages. "So Mrs Beauchamp ran a blood test, all came back clear… And have you thought about where you'd like to give birth?"

Some of Alicia's utter panic must have shown on her face.

"Do you think maybe you could save those kinds of questions for next time?" Bea asks, firm, makes it quite clear this is a demand, not a request. "Alicia's known she'll be able to go ahead with this pregnancy for less than an hour, I doubt she's even begun to think about that kind of thing just yet. Look, you'll need to see her again at twenty-five weeks anyway, right? Could you wait until then, give her some time to think?"

"Is that what you want, Alicia?"

Alicia nods, smiles at Bea gratefully, suddenly flooded with an enormous sense of relief. "If… if that isn't a problem…"

"Of course not. If that's what you'd prefer, we can do that. We are going to need to rush decisions like that along a little more than we would normally, given how far along you are, but a few more weeks won't hurt." Sorcha reaches for the sonography machine, smiles. "Can you lift your top for me, Alicia? This will be the first scan you've seen, right?"

"Relax." Bea squeezes her hand gently. "You're allowed to enjoy this. Okay? You can relax. No one's going to take this away from you now, sweetheart, it's alright."

Her eyes are fixed firmly on the monitor screen as the gel, then the probe, makes contact with her skin. It's not necessary now, of course; now she can get attached, now she can acknowledge her pregnancy, her body, but somehow the mental switch isn't quite as easy as she'd imagined.

"Alicia," her midwife says softly. "Alicia? Do you want to see?"

It's only then that Alicia realises she's closed her eyes.

Tentatively, carefully, she blinks, focuses her gaze on the screen again.

The image is grainy, blurred, difficult to make out at first, but it's there, the faint, white outline of a baby's face, chest, tiny hands.

Alicia bursts into tears.

"Hey, hey, I know." Bea's arms are around her shoulders instantly, hugs her tight, a little awkward, working around the ultrasound machine. "I know. Let it all out, it's alright. Everything's alright. Makes it all feel real, doesn't it?"

Alicia nods, too overwhelmed to speak, so many emotions flooding through her that she can't even begin to try putting it into words.

"Do you want to know the sex?" Sorcha asks gently.

"I…" Alicia stammers, buys herself time to think, can't quite draw her eyes away from that image on the screen. She hasn't even thought this far ahead, couldn't allow herself to consider that, of all things. It had all seemed so trivial before, somehow, so far from being something she could seriously consider, so painfully out of reach, and now it's all crept up on her with no warning and she's more than halfway through a pregnancy she hasn't allowed herself to mentally prepare for, slowly realising that everything is going to have to move so quickly now, that she's so unprepared, a mere eighteen weeks left and she doesn't have a clue what she's doing, what she wants.

Except she does, Alicia realises. She does know what she wants in this particular scenario, or rather what she doesn't.

She doesn't want a surprise. God knows she's had enough of those for a lifetime lately.

She nods, wipes at her eyes and the fresh tears, watches as the scanner is moved around to focus on her baby's legs, a strange warm feeling in her chest unlike anything she's felt before.

"Can you see?" her midwife asks. "Alicia? You've got a little girl."

Everything changes, in that moment. It's like a release, of sorts; Alicia can't quite describe it. It's as though all the pain of the last few months fades away at those words, at that image on the screen, because it's real, because finally she can allow herself to believe it's real, because she's _hers_ , and that changes everything.

She has a daughter. Ethan's gone, Ethan's made it quite clear he's not coming back and it's torn her heart in pieces but she has a daughter, a mercifully Huntington's-free daughter, hers…

"Hey, it's alright." It's only at Bea's gentle pressure on her shoulders that Alicia realises she can't quite stop crying, too caught up in the emotion of it all to even notice until that moment. "Happy tears?" she asks gently, doesn't even wait for Alicia to nod before she pulls her into another hug. "I know. I know, lovely, I know. She's beautiful, Alicia. She's so beautiful. She looks just like you."

She's laughing and crying at the same time, wipes at her tears. "How can you even tell?"

"I can totally tell." Bea gestures across to the monitor. "See? That's definitely your nose. Poor girl." She laughs, dodges out of the way as Alicia swings for her, mock hurt. "You happy?" she asks softly.

Alicia nods, still sobbing. "I can't even explain…"

"You don't have to, I get it. Cry as much as you want, okay? You've had a hell of a few weeks, cry as much as you want. Everything's fine now. You've got a beautiful, perfect little girl in there, and you're going to be an amazing mam. Everything's alright."

She feels as though she's floating, somehow. Everything feels as though it's not quite real; this is everything she was too afraid to allow herself to dream, everything she's been so convinced she would have to give up and it feels wonderfully real and too good to be true all at once.

She's smaller than Alicia expected. Not that she's been imagining this moment, not consciously, anyway, but somehow, she's smaller than Alicia had thought she would be by now, more perfectly formed, looks more like a real baby; or maybe it's just different when it's hers, not images in a medical textbook. Maybe she's blinded by this strange feeling that's surging through her, maybe her baby is just as slightly-alien-esque as she remembers finding those textbook images back in medical school.

The baby on the screen- her baby- raises her tiny fist to her mouth, and Alicia thinks her heart might just melt.

That's when it all starts to go wrong.

Her midwife frowns, shifts the probe. "Alicia, I want to revise your due date," she explains. "Your baby's somewhat smaller than we'd expect for twenty-two weeks, I think it's more likely we're looking at twenty weeks gestation."

Alicia shakes her head. "I can't be…"

"I know what Mrs Beauchamp said, but given the circumstances when she made her estimation, I think we have to consider she may have made a mistake. Your baby's bang on the measurements we'd expect for twenty weeks…"

"No, no, you don't understand." She's confused, more than anything, hadn't expected this, knows beyond doubt she's right. "I haven't… god, this is so embarrassing. I've only managed to… once… since I was…raped." It's strange, Alicia considers; some days she can say that word as though it's nothing, matter of fact, and other days she can hardly force it out at all. "I have to be twenty-two weeks, it was only the once…"

"Okay." There's a flash of concern in her midwife's expression. "She's measuring very small for twenty-two weeks. You're not on any medication?"

Alicia just shakes her head, silent, numb.

It's slowly beginning to dawn on her that this is serious, and all of her euphoria from just a few moments earlier comes crashing down.

"And you don't smoke? You haven't been drinking?"

"I…" Alicia stammers. "I didn't know until twelve weeks, I was distracted, I was studying for my senior registrar exams… I quit the alcohol then, as soon as I knew. I… I was smoking until sixteen weeks, but it was one every month or so, at the most, until I found out, probably more regular after that, but it was never… it's always been a stress thing, really, a couple a week, absolute maximum, I haven't had one since I was sixteen weeks, I swear…"

She can't meet her midwife's eyes, too painfully ashamed.

"And you've been eating properly?"

Alicia glances across to Bea, almost a little afraid of what she might find in her expression, what she might say. Bea grips her hand in response, squeezes tightly, and the look in her eyes tells Alicia everything she needs to know.

Bea isn't planning on grassing her up, if she brushes it all off, denies everything. She'll stand by her, whatever she says.

She's just really, really hoping Alicia will opt for telling the truth.

"I…" Her eyes fill with tears again and she can't quite bring herself to say it, knows she's going to be slaughtered and she thoroughly deserves it. "I've been really, really stressed… since… since Ethan…"

She's not even entirely sure her midwife will know Ethan's name, it's been so long now.

Six weeks. Six weeks he's been gone, and it feels like a lifetime.

"Okay. Okay, we're going to talk about this later. I'll complete the anomaly scan and we'll talk about it after that. Alicia, it's alright," her midwife tells her gently. "Relax for me, darling."

She shakes her head, frantic, heart pounding, nausea rising in her throat. "But you… you just said it's my fault… she's not growing and it's my fault, I've messed her up and she's not even born…"

"That isn't what I said, Alicia. Breathe for me." Sorcha pauses, passes a box of tissues across to Bea to hand to Alicia. "It's alright. I'm going to finish your scan and then we'll talk about it properly."

"Last time… last time you said it was irresponsible to leave it so late…"

Bea raises her eyebrows, unimpressed, practically shoots the midwife a death glare.

"I know, and I'm sorry you overheard that, it was wrong of us. I know this pregnancy's been incredibly difficult for you. The main thing is you've presented now, okay? We can't go back, we can only move forward. So I'm going to finish your anomaly scan, and then we're going to talk about this properly, and we'll come up with a plan to help you through this. Relax, Alicia. I need you to relax." Her midwife takes hold of the screen, angles it back around, out of sight. "This is going to take a while, alright? You're okay?"

It hasn't escaped Alicia's notice that no guarantees have been made regarding her baby, throughout Sorcha's attempts to calm her down.

"I love her," she whispers, scared, panicked, knows what would be racing through her mind were this one of her patients, the decision she might have to make. "I swear, I wouldn't do anything to hurt her, I love her too much, I couldn't, I can look after her…"

"Oh sweetheart, no one's doubting that." Sorcha moves away from the ultrasound machine, kneels beside Alicia, holds her hands. "Look at me. There's no doubt in my mind you love her. You wouldn't have put yourself through prenatal diagnosis at this stage if you didn't, not with Huntington's," she explains simply. "I think you've just been struggling with all this more than anyone's realised, haven't you?"

"But I've hurt her already, what does that say about me?" Alicia sobs. "It's my fault… Please don't call Social Services," she pleads. "It'll be better, now, it's just been so hard, not knowing…"

"I'm not going to call Social Services, darling, that hadn't even crossed my mind…" There's surprise in her midwife's expression, surprise Alicia wasn't at all expecting.

"We're ED doctors," Bea explains. "Alicia specialises in paeds, we see a lot of child protection cases, I think she's just worried…"

It feels like some sort of release, an awful, uncontrollable landside of emotions flooding out of her. It's as though along with the relief of a negative Huntington's result, everything else has become too much to cope with all at once, as though all of her strategies have failed in one catastrophic moment and she's falling apart, can't hold herself together any longer.

"Alicia. Alicia, listen. I'm not going to call Social Services, I'm not thinking safeguarding concerns. I just think you've had an incredibly difficult few weeks and you haven't been looking after yourself as well as you should be. It's alright. We'll get you support, now. I'm going to finish the anomaly scan, we'll take it from there, okay? But your baby's brain looks fine. Placenta's normal." Sorcha smiles reassuringly. "Relax. You're doing really well."

She waits for her midwife to pick up the scanner again, turns to Bea. "He should be here…"

"I know." Bea sighs, silent for a moment, nothing she can say to make it better. "I know, lovely, I know. I'm totally taking you baby shopping this weekend," she tells her, and Alicia knows she's trying her hardest to distract her, to get her through the scan and out of here, painfully aware of Ethan's absence, too much time to sit and wait, to think. "You're off this weekend, right? I think Ruby's off too, we should go into Holby, find all the cute pink stuff. If you need me to move out, you only need to tell me, okay? I figured you're going to want my room for the baby," she explains; some of Alicia's confusion must have shown in her face. "Makes more sense than Ruby moving out, I'm the one in the room next to you…"

Alicia shakes her head firmly, adamant, suddenly rather panicked. "Of course I don't want you to move out," she insists. "She's not going to need her own room for ages, I'm just going to have her in with me, anyway. I mean… she's so tiny, isn't she? I can't imagine putting her in a room by herself, like, ever." There's a sudden surge of protectiveness inside her unlike anything she's ever known. She's loved this baby all along, of course, merely tried to deny it to herself, but now, somehow, having seen her, her baby, everything has changed.

Bea laughs. "Well, you're probably going to go back on that in a few years. Or she will, anyway. She's not going to be a baby forever, you know. But she is pretty cute." She pauses, all of a sudden, and Alicia follows her gaze to her midwife, still staring at the screen, motionless, something in her expression Alicia can't quite place, just for a moment. And then she smiles, moves the scanner, and Bea turns back to face her.

"How do you feel about maybe telling everyone tonight?" she asks gently. "Pub, after work?"

"I…" Alicia hesitates for a moment, not entirely sure how she feels, processing. "I think that's a good idea," she decides at last. "They all know, I'm not stupid, I know they all know. I just want to get it over with, I'm sick of having to avoid it."

Bea nods. "Are you going to tell them?" she asks softly.

She doesn't need to expand for Alicia to know exactly what she's asking.

"No," Alicia tells her. "No, I can't. It wouldn't be fair on Ethan. I know, I know what you're going to say," she says, as Bea pulls a face, clearly unimpressed. "I know. But it's his condition, he's the one who has to live with it. If he doesn't want everyone knowing, it's not my place to tell them, it's none of my business…"

"And you're the one who's had to conceal a pregnancy," Bea points out. "Of course it's your business. It's your baby, Alicia, your pregnancy, if you want to tell them…"

She shakes her head. "No. No, I'll just… They're not going to ask too many questions. They can assume whatever they like, they can assume I've been trying to get my head around it or something, they can even assume I wasn't sure it was what I wanted it as long as they don't say it to my face, I don't care. I'm not going to tell them all Ethan's diagnosis. Just… just in case. I know he's not coming back, Bea, I do know that. I just… I just want to pretend that maybe, for a while, you know?"

The rest of the scan passes by rather quickly. They talk, casual, normal things, slowly, carefully, start to refer to her baby as though it's all suddenly the most normal thing in the world it should have been all along.

Bea's distraction technique works. Somehow, she manages to push her guilt to the back of her mind, rationalise it all. It's birthweight, she tells herself. She's seen it herself in paediatrics, home deliveries brought in by the paramedics, low birthweight babies rushed through to her in resus upon arrival, only to be handed back to their mothers a short while later, healthy enough, just small. She hasn't done any awful damage. It's going to be easier from now on; she hasn't got that awful burden hanging over her any longer, the not knowing. She won't be so self-conscious, she can finally embrace the fact that she's pregnant, doesn't have to fight to ignore it all for the sake of her own sanity.

It's all going to get better. Of course it is.

"Okay. Okay, I've completed your scan."

There's something wrong. Alicia can tell that much just from her midwife's tone. She's trying hard to mask it, keep her voice light, but to Alicia, so used to delivering bad news to patients, it's perfectly obvious.

It's terrifying.

"What's wrong with her?" The words come tumbling out of her mouth before she's quite realised she's spoken at all, desperately afraid. She's suddenly aware of Bea gripping her arms tightly, attempting to comfort her, getting nowhere fast.

"The scan showed an abnormality," Sorcha explains gently, but Alicia shakes her head, vision blurring.

"I don't want the gentle approach. I want you to talk to me like a medic… can I see?"

"I think it's best if…"

"I want to see!" she snaps angrily. There's a harsh ringing in her ears, panic rising within her. "Sorry. Please, I just want to see…"

Slowly, the screen is turned back to face her, and Alicia scans it frantically, head a mess, the little she did once know about obstetrics suddenly confused, a mess, like an exam she hasn't studied for, can recall vague details but not enough to make sense of the test in front of her.

She can't see it, at first. It must be seconds, if that, but it feels like a lifetime, those moments in which she's mentally scanning the image on the screen, and then she sees it.

Once she's seen it, of course, Alicia can't understand how she never noticed it before.

"Gastroschisis?" she asks. Her heart is pounding in her chest and the room begins to spin, and all Alicia wants is Ethan.

"Exomphalos," her midwife corrects gently. "There's definitely a membrane. It looks minor, it's only her intestines."

 _Only?_ Alicia wants to scream at her.

"I didn't notice," she stammers. "I… I… well, I did… I saw it… before… I just thought it was her legs, the angle…"

"It's small, yes. Exomphalos major tends to be more obvious. Her heart's fine, Alicia." She must have realised this is exactly where Alicia's mind is going to wander next; the potential complications, associated conditions. She moves the scanner, waits for a moment, and a rapid thudding fills the room, but Alicia's so far gone down the path of total panic that it takes her a moment to realise what it is. "Your baby's heart looks perfect, she's got a good, strong heartbeat. We already know her genetic screening came back clear. There's no sign of other complications."

"You can't… you can't know that for sure until…"

"Until delivery, yes. But there's nothing else on her scan. There's nothing to indicate further problems. I'm almost certain it's minor, Alicia," she says gently. "I know it's a shock, I know, but the statistics are good for exomphalos…"

"Without complications," Alicia finishes for her. Her voice no longer sounds like her own, bile rising in her throat. "Mortality rate's low without complications, I know the stats. Ethan knew," she says numbly. "Ethan knew all along, he knew something was wrong with her, he just didn't…" she trails off.

 _Ethan…. Ethan's gone…_

"Alicia. Alicia, listen. If you work in emergency paeds, you'll know, it's treatable. Provided she's stable enough, she'll be taken straight through for surgery, post-delivery. Most exomphalos babies go on to have no complications further down the line. The prognosis is good…"

"It's still major surgery…" It's as though all of her medical training has suddenly become utterly irrelevant. She doesn't care about the stats, can't allow herself to believe them because this is _her_ baby, tiny, fragile, squirms. She feels it before she sees the movement on the screen, and in that moment, it almost feels as though she's trying to reassure her mother, somehow, in the strangest possible way.

"But the prognosis is good," her midwife repeats. "You know as well as I do there are no guarantees, but the prognosis is good. It's a matter of planning ahead, at this stage. We can talk more about this at your next appointment, but it's advised you're booked in for an elective caesarean."

"And that's non-negotiable?"

"I can refer you to one of our consultants, you can discuss it with them. We have leaflets here, we keep to give to parents after an exomphalos diagnosis, but you won't need one of those, will you?"

Alicia shakes her head, numb.

"Okay. Do you want a break?"

"No, no I just want to… I just want to get it over with, now," Alicia says quietly.

She wants to get out of here; that's the truth. She just wants to get out of here, wants to lock herself in the staff toilets and cry and scream at the unfairness of it all.

Her midwife nods. "If you're sure. I need you to lie back for me again, sweetheart, okay? I need to examine you."

It might not have been so bad, if only it hadn't been for all the emotional trauma of the whole appointment up until that point. If it hadn't been for that, perhaps she might have been able to pull herself together and endure it, block all of the painful associations out for the sake of thirty seconds, a minute at the most. But already Alicia feels as though she's trapped in some kind of awful nightmare, and it's all too much to cope with, her poor, perfect little girl doomed to be desperately ill right from birth, taken away, rushed up to NICU, and now this, she can't…

"I don't want it," she says firmly, defensive, not even entirely sure what it is that she's refusing, not even sure if she would know if only she could calm down enough to cast her mind back to medical school, too far gone for that. She shoots upright, pulls her knees up to chest like a child, anxious, all of a sudden convinced that if she doesn't the decision is going to be taken out of her hands, no consent. "I don't need it, I don't… I can't… you've done the scan, can't you just…"

"I need to measure your fundal height. It's just going to be abdominal palpation, Alicia, that's all. It will be brief…"

 _His hands, his hands pressing down on her, holding her still, his weight between her legs…_

"No…"

"Alicia, listen. Your baby's measuring small, I only need to look at your urine sample to tell you're dehydrated…"

 _He's on top of her, she's told him no but it's as though he hasn't heard her, forcing…_

"So you're thinking physiological oligohydramnios," Alicia snaps, agitated. "I get it. Yes, I've probably been crap at the whole avoiding dehydration thing too, only basic self-care stuff is actually stupidly difficult when your partner walks out on you out of nowhere and leaves you to just wait and see if you'll have to abort his baby…" There's a sudden pressure on her shoulders, and she jumps, frightened, curses herself when she realises it's just Bea.

"She's shaking," Bea warns. "I did tell you she was going to struggle with this. Breathe, sweetheart." She rubs Alicia's back soothingly. "You're safe. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you, you're fine."

"Will it help if I talk you through it, Alicia?" There's a gentleness to Sorcha's tone that wasn't there a moment ago, or she just couldn't detect it before, too far gone down the path of utter panic and flashbacks. "We're going to have to find a way around this, it's important…"

 _He's grabbed her wrists, screams in her face, pushes her hard and she's falling, there's pain… he's hovering over her and she can't move, shocked, still, can't escape, he's going to do it again and she can't move, can't scream…_

"No… no, I can't… please…"

"It's going to be less than a minute, Alicia, less than a minute and it will be over…"

"I can't… no… no, I… don't… don't… want…" The room starts to spin; she isn't listening, she's going to force her into this whether she likes it or not and she can't do this, she can't…

"What if I do it?" Bea suggests. "I did an Obstetrics placement, it was a while ago, but I know what I'm doing. Alicia?" She doesn't bother waiting for an answer from Sorcha. "Alicia, would that be better?"

Her midwife sighs; mildly offended, Alicia suspects, as she desperately tries to pull herself together, breathing slowing. "You do realise she's going to need an abdominal examination at each of her appointments?"

"And I'll come to every one of them and do this part if it makes her feel safer," Bea retorts. "She's stressed out enough as it is."

"I really can't let you…"

"Oh, come on." Bea pulls her NHS ID from her pocket, exasperated. "Just in case you thought I was an imposter off the street and raided the scrubs cupboard, or something. You don't have to declare it on her notes, just let them assume. I work here. I'm just… covering in another department. It's not even really that unusual, is it? I'd just not be doing it in an official capacity. If that's what you want, Alicia? Would you consent if I did it instead?"

She still doesn't like the idea. That in itself is ridiculous; Alicia knows that. Bea has always been one for physical contact, and that's never bothered her before; if anything, she relied on it, after Ethan left, just as she had in those painful few days before Bea's international trauma course, that comfort.

This shouldn't feel any different, and yet it does, and it's so messy and complicated to explain.

But at the same time, if someone's going to do it, Alicia would far rather it was Bea.

She trusts Bea.

Her list of people she's willing to trust has become rapidly diminished since Eddie.

Slowly, apprehensively, Alicia nods.

"Okay, well that's settled, then," Bea decides. "Alicia, lie back for me. I'll be quick, I promise."

"Your hands are cold." Alicia squeezes her eyes shut, tense.

"Sorry, sorry. This is going to feel a bit strange, okay? Relax."

"What _is_ that?"

"Oh my god, did you actually go to medical school? That's her back. Her head should be up here, she was breach on the ultrasound. That doesn't hurt?"

She shakes her head. "Just feels… weird." Alicia wouldn't go as far as to say unpleasant, not about this sensation itself, but every part of her is irrationally on edge.

She's tried so hard to shut out absolutely everything relating to this pregnancy, ignore the physical changes, not to look, that she's totally unprepared for Bea's hands palpating her abdomen, the unwelcome realisation that she must be huge, tenses.

"Hey, I'm not going to hurt you, okay? No way would I risk that, not when you can cut off my food supply. We're housemates," Bea explains. "Alicia knows I can't cook. I'm almost done, sweetheart, I just need to…"

She knows what's coming, isn't totally out of her depth with the medical side, and she doesn't want it, this was exactly why she didn't want it.

 _She told him she didn't want it before, told him no and he just wouldn't stop…_

"Bea…"

"It's alright. It'll be two seconds, I promise. I've got the top of your uterus, I'm going to find your pubic bone, I'm going to measure and then I'll be done. You're fine. It's almost over."

She shudders, eyes still closed. "And then I have to do it all again in three weeks…"

"It won't be so bad next time, you'll have done it once. You alright?"

"No, I can't…"

"Yes, you can. Breathe for me. You're fine, you're safe, I'm not going to hurt you. You trust me, right?"

"I don't trust anyone to…"

"No, no, okay," Bea agrees. "I'm sorry, that was a stupid question. We can, I don't know, maybe if…"

Alicia shakes her head, winces. "Just do it."

"You sure?"

"No. No, but I just… I just want to get out of here and go back to work and pretend none of this is real," she admits, voice shaking. "Please…"

"Okay." It's quick, to Bea's credit, a brief moment of pressure, utter panic, and then it's over. "Okay, you're alright. I'm done. Hey, sit up slowly for me, that isn't going to help."

She yanks her scrub top down before she's even properly upright, pulls her knees back up to her chest, emotionally drained. "Seriously, your hands are freezing. How are all your patients not complaining?"

"They aren't, you're just fussy," Bea teases, turns back to the midwife. "Sixteen centimetres, I'd say definitely oligohydramnios. She's…" she glances across to Alicia, apologetic. "She's been struggling rather a lot with the uncertainty, I don't think she's been great at taking care of herself lately. It's been a lot. She had awful morning sickness until a couple of weeks ago. Look, if I promise I'll take her straight home and make sure she's getting oral fluids, can we spare her admission? I don't think she needs intravenous."

Under any other circumstances, Alicia might have objected to being spoken about as though she's a child, but today she doesn't have the energy to fight.

"I don't think we need to admit her, no," her midwife agrees. "And you've been having regular movements, Alicia? Okay. Here, darling."

It's only as she hands over the box of tissues that Alicia realises she's dissolved into tears again.

She barely listens, the rest of the appointment. She tries, she really does, but she just can't force herself to focus.

The ultrasound image is long gone, but Alicia can't get it out of her head.

All she can think about is her baby, her poor little girl who has done nothing to deserve this.

She had one job. One job, to keep her healthy, that was all she had to do and she couldn't even manage that.

What does the rest of it matter?

And so she goes through the motions when at last the appointment ends, allows Bea to lead her back down to the ED, arms wrapped around her protectively, taking control.

Bea doesn't even wait for a response from Mrs Beauchamp after knocking on her office door, pushes it straight open, pulls Alicia through behind her.

"Dr Kinsella, need I remind you…" Mrs Beauchamp looks up from her computer screen, face softens, and in that moment, it's perfectly clear to Alicia she must look utterly horrendous. "Alright, come and sit down. Alicia. Alicia, do you want to tell me what's wrong?"

The door swings open again, and Alicia allows herself to be guided down onto the sofa, looks down, disengaged, just wants to disappear.

"Alicia? Sorry, Mrs Beauchamp, I…" Ruby stammers. "I saw… is she alright?"

"Right, I think it's best you wait outside, Ruby…" Mrs Beauchamp begins, but Alicia shakes her head, springs up, practically throws herself into her friend's arms, sobs.

She needs her to stay. She doesn't have the words to tell her, but she needs her to stay.

Ruby pulls her into her arms, holds her tight, silent for a few moments, lets her cry, as though it's perfectly clear to her it's all Alicia needs, in that moment.

"What happened?" she asks at last, voice soft. "Did…?"

Alicia shakes her head against her chest, can't bring herself to say it.

"Results came back," Bea explains. "All clear for Huntington's, she's just been up to Obstetrics."

"Then…?"

"Exomphalos. Umbilical hernia, essentially, her intestines are outside her abdominal cavity. It looks minor, but it's a little hard to tell at this stage." She's explaining it for Ruby's benefit, of course; Mrs Beauchamp won't need the clarification. "Doesn't look as though there are any related complications, but we won't know for certain until she's delivered. And… she's measuring a little small. Oligohydramnios."

Mercifully, Bea makes no mention of the lecture she was given on hydration and nutrition; the same lecture, embarrassingly, she must have given to her own patients hundreds of times since she qualified.

There's silence for a moment; painful, hard silence.

"Alicia," Mrs Beauchamp says gently at last. "Alicia, come and sit down. Look at me." She kneels in front of her, takes her hands. "You're alright. Breathe for me, it's alright. It's just a bit of a shock, isn't it?"

"I didn't even think…" she stammers. "I was so worried she'd have Huntington's, I didn't even think about anything else…"

"I know. I know, I can understand that. But Alicia, listen. She? You're having a girl? Right, I'll make sure she's referred to Jon Barling, okay? He's by far the most experienced surgeon in Neonatal, she'll be in safe hands. Leave that with me. You know the stats, don't you? They're good. I know it's hard, believe me, I've been there. But it's relatively simple surgery for neonatal…"

"Provided there are no complications we don't know about yet," Alicia protests. "She could have cardiac…"

"I know, but you can't think like that. You can't do that to yourself, and you know that. Your baby needs you to be strong for her." Mrs Beauchamp pauses for a moment, hesitant. "Do you want me to try calling Ethan again?"

"He won't answer."

"You don't think he might if I bombard him with calls direct out of the ED?"

"You've already tried that…"

"I've tried from my office. If I call him from reception, he'll recognise the number, he can assume…"

Alicia shakes her head. "Thank you. I appreciate the offer, but it won't work. He's made it perfectly clear he wants out, and I… I don't want to worry him."

"That's more consideration than he's shown you, and you know it," Bea points out. "If you want him here…"

"I do, but he doesn't want to be here, does he? I'm not going to beg him again, I've already humiliated myself enough…"

"Are you sure he wouldn't want to know?" Ruby suggests gently. "He… well, he'd more or less convinced himself the baby would test positive, hadn't he, when he left. This might change things…"

"No. Not after the stairs. I think the stairs changed everything, for him. He won't come," she tells Mrs Beauchamp shakily. "You can try if you really want to, but he won't come."

"I'm going to take Alicia home," Bea tells Mrs Beauchamp firmly. "I know that leaves you in a difficult position, but she's in no fit state to be in work and I can't leave her by herself. I… I don't think she's been coping with all this as well as she's had us believe she has," she says carefully.

"I'm not a child…"

"No, you're not," Bea agrees. "But you've barely slept for ten weeks, you're not eating- oh don't look at me like that, Alicia, Ruby and I aren't stupid- you're dehydrated, you're just gone from one massive shock to another and you're pregnant. You need to go home and you need to rest. So if you can't make that decision for yourself, then yes, I'm going to treat you like a child, because I care about you. And I'd rather you hate me for it now than you wish you'd given yourself a break later."

"Take her home," Mrs Beauchamp agrees. "We can manage here. Alicia, do you have your MATB1?"

"I've got it." It's only in that moment at Alicia realises Bea must have picked up her notes and her scan pictures and all the other pieces of paper handed over up in Obstetrics; she can hardly remember the last few minutes of that appointment, head starts to spin again as she tries.

"Okay, great. I'll deal with that later. Go home, Alicia. Rest."

"We're so understaffed…"

"Let me worry about that. You call me if you need anything, alright? Look after her, Dr Kinsella."

"I will." Bea ushers her out of Mrs Beauchamp's office, turns to Ruby. "Don't suppose you've got any change? Sorry, I know you need to get back to work…"

"It's alright. Here."

"Amazing, thanks. We'll see you at home, yeah?" She grabs Alicia's hand, leads her down the corridor to the staff vending machine, retrieves the bottle of water. "That's for you, I'm refilling it when we get home. Right, let's get out of here. Go get changed, I'll stand guard."

She smiles gratefully, wipes at her eyes, aware she must have rivers of mascara running down her face by now. "How can I thank you…"

"You don't need to. Go on."

"Is she leaving early again?" Alicia hears Dylan complain as she disappears into the staff changing area. "Seriously? Did Connie clear that? Cubicles are overflowing, we're practically at capacity. She's pregnant, not ill, for goodness sake."

"Leave it, Dylan," Bea warns. "You don't know what you're talking about."

Alicia freezes for a moment, panics, then decides freezing is more or less the worst thing she can possibly do and frantically changes out of her scrubs, throws on her clothes, oversized jumper that may or may not have once belonged to Ethan, painfully aware that should any of her colleagues walk in on her now, at this stage of it all, the truth is going to be painfully obvious and even she will no longer be able to deny it.

"You're not still going with the denial strategy, are you? Really? Last time I checked, Alicia's just as qualified as the rest of us, so unless they just don't bother teaching anything obstetrics related at Newcastle or wherever she went, in fact, they didn't bother teaching basic common sense…"

She tugs at her jeans, frustrated, vows to brave the maternity shops come the weekend, splashes water on her face in a vain attempt to wash off the remains of her mascara, throws her bag over her shoulder hesitates, half afraid to venture back out into the staff room.

Usually, she'd snap at whoever was behind the unwanted comments, vile-tempered, but she feels so numb and empty that Alicia can't quite even muster the energy for that.

"And if you're telling me she hasn't looked in a mirror for the last couple of months, obviously, which I very much doubt…"

"Will you just give it a rest? Ill, not pregnant, if you must know. Not that it's any of your business. She's ill, Mrs Beauchamp's sending her home, and that's the end of it." Bea storms into the changing area, grabs Alicia's arm, practically drags her out of the staff room and along the corridor towards the main doors, every inch the mother tiger.

"Come on," she whispers. "It's alright. We'll walk down to the café around the corner and we'll call a taxi, no one will follow us all the way down there, not on Mrs Beauchamp's watch. You're next in tomorrow night, right? You won't be on the same shift for a few days now, he'll have forgotten all about it by the time you see him again."

She grips Bea's hand gratefully. "Thank you. I know I need to tell them…"

"Well, yes, you do. But today isn't the day, okay? Whenever you're ready. I'll keep defending you until you are. And coffee's on me today. But you can fight it out with Ruby over who's cooking dinner. I can't poison poor little Meabh before she's even born, can I?"

It takes Alicia a moment to catch on. "No, no, no, no, no, you are so not calling my daughter Meabh."

"Hey, Meabh's a great name. Irish warrior queen. Meabh Bea Munroe?"

She laughs, despite everything. "In your dreams."

"Your grandma's from Ireland, right? The one we couldn't get off the dance floor at your thirtieth because she was determined to out-dance the lot of us, and then she dislocated her hip replacement and we really couldn't get her off the dance floor? She'd like it. You should give her my number."

"Oh my god, I am never letting you around my family again."

"Or Eithne? Sadhbh? Aoife?"

"You're just still pissed your mam and dad went with Britney, aren't you?"

"Can you blame me? You'd be pissed too if half your teenage years were haunted by Toxic. Aine?"

"How about something I might actually be able to spell?"

Bea smiles mischievously, pulls open the door of the coffee shop. "Beatrix?"

"Absolutely not."

 **Pretty much my entire heart and soul went into this one, I'm sorry you've had to wait so long for it, it was quite difficult to write! Before I wrote this chapter I had no idea what actually happens at a midwife appointment, and once I started researching I realised they must be incredibly traumatic for rape victims, so I really wanted to try to do that justice. I hope I managed it.**

 **As ever, I would love to know your thoughts on this one- and please feel free to shout at me if it was too long! I've had an awful week, so you would totally make me feel better ;) I'm planning on 2/3 present day chapters next, but please do let me know if you would prefer something different.**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	19. Chapter 19

**I would be really interested to know if you saw this chapter coming, I've been dropping hints for a while (I think since chapter 6) but they may be more obvious after reading this one!**

 **Bird of paradise is a yoga posture- Chakra as a character was partly inspired by a lady in one of my yoga classes a few years back, who used to bring her five year old along in the school holidays, who put us adults all to shame!**

 **Chapter 19**

Alicia awakes to a curtain of red hair spread across her pillow, a small body pressed up against her and a gentle pressure on her hand, just enough to remind her that last night was real.

God knows she's longed for it, over the last eight years. Alicia has lost track of the number of times she's imagined this, tortured herself with it. So many times, she's desperately wanted it to be the two of them doing this together, as it should have been, if only life and genetics and timing hadn't been so cruel.

Part of it has been selfish, admittedly; those first few weeks after Ruby moved out and again in their new house in Newcastle, alone with her daughter for the first time, those mornings all she'd wanted was an extra hour or so of sleep, a few moments to herself and instead interrupted by a wide-awake toddler, no one else to help her, the times it would have been a godsend to have someone to leave Chakra with to run to the supermarket (because there is no such thing as running to the supermarket with a young child, as Alicia discovered all-too quickly), someone to share the parents evenings, just the freedom of being able to have a night off with her friends occasionally without having to plan out the childcare element.

But there's also a part of her that's just desperately wanted someone to share the whole parenting thing with, just to feel a little less lonely.

Even in the good moments, Ethan's absence has been lonely.

This feels a little strange, admittedly. It's a scene a normal family would take for granted, she supposes. She and Ethan, their daughter curled up in the middle of the bed between them, her proximity to her mother, careful distance from her father, the only indicator that this isn't quite normal, not yet.

It feels… odd, as though two very separate parts of her life have collided: life before, with Ethan, and life after that awful period of limbo, life with Chakra, her little girl who couldn't quite fill the emptiness in her heart Ethan left behind but completed her in a way she hadn't even known she needed completing until she held her in her arms.

It feels so odd, so unfamiliar, uncertain, and yet at the same time it feels so right.

Alicia yawns, stretches slightly, blinks, still not quite fully alert.

"Hey. You awake?" Ethan lies facing her, rubs gentle circles on the back of her hand. "How did you sleep?"

She smiles sleepily, squeezes his hand back. "Oh, you know. Fine, after our midnight interruption. I'm sorry," she tells him, glances at Chakra, satisfied she's still sleeping, unaware. "I'm sorry, there was no way she was going back up to her own bed, she's used to just being able to gate crash… I mean, maybe I should have made more effort to put a stop to it by now, I know she's nearly eight, but it's just been me…"

"It's alright. It's alright, I understand. She's fine where she is. Are you sure she's okay?" Ethan worries. "I can go…"

"No." Alicia grips his hand tightly. "No, don't be stupid. You aren't the problem, Ethan. She likes you. I… both of us, we both want you to stay. That… last night, it wasn't about you. She's warmed to you pretty quickly. She'll either wake up and it'll be like last night never happened, or she'll just be a bit subdued this morning. She'll be fine."

"But you're… you're going to try to get her to tell you what's wrong, if she's still upset, right? She might not want to talk in front of me…"

"Ethan," she says softly. "Ethan, let me worry about that, okay?"

He shakes his head, pained. "I hate this. She's my daughter, too, I shouldn't have to leave it to you but I do, I don't have a clue about this stuff, I hardly know her…"

"Yet," Alicia corrects him. "You don't know what to do with her just yet. You will."

Ethan turns her hand over in his, shaky. "Today's going to be a bad one," he warns, voice laced with anxiety. "I… I haven't been going downhill… not as fast as I was at first, before I… well, you know. Most of the time I'm… well, I can't complain, all things considered, but I have days when my coordination's just gone, or I can't…" His left arm jerks, sudden, classic Huntington's, and yet it's not a symptom Alicia's seen him exhibit before in all the time they've spent together. "Sorry. Sorry. Tomorrow will probably be better, maybe I should just go back to the clinic and…"

"No, you shouldn't," Alicia tells him gently, firmly. "Not unless you want to. We're doing this together now, yeah? That's what you said last night."

"I meant Chakra, you know I did. You shouldn't have to go through this, Alicia, I don't want to put you through this…"

"No," Alicia agrees. "No, I know. I get that. I really do. But you don't get to pick and choose like that. If we're going to do this, if we're going to try again, we're not keeping secrets this time. We do it together. All of it. That's the only way this, us, is ever going to work."

"I can't put you through…"

"You're not putting me through anything," she insists softly. "I want us to do this together, Ethan. I love you. Whatever happens."

"I've missed you so much," Ethan confesses. "I love you. I never stopped…"

"I know," Alicia tells him gently. "I know. It's all over, now, all of that. I want to spend forever with you. However long forever is for us. Whatever happens, we face it together. I love you. I love you, and I never want to let you go again. So stay. Please? Kerry gave me enough of your medication for a few days, but I can drive over to your place later, get you some clean clothes, whatever else you need. Chakra won't mind staying in for the day. I can't pretend there haven't been a couple of times my only post night shift childcare option has been catching a few hours' sleep once she's home from school and leaving her to entertain herself. Hey, I've done it twice, three times at most, only when I was completely desperate," she protests at his expression. "My point is, she won't mind staying here. She'll be fine with it. We can leave you in peace, whatever you need. I'd take the woman who owns this place up on her offer to take Chakra over to meet the farm animals, but I don't trust her not to start lecturing her on the perils of dairy and setting all the chickens free."

"You do realise you've created Frankenstein yourself there, right?" Ethan teases. His voice shakes, face twists awkwardly. "Sorry, sorry…"

"Will you stop apologising? It's not your fault, Ethan."

"How… how much does she understand?" he asks fearfully. "She's still so young, I don't expect her to be totally patient…"

"She gets it. She gets it as much as she's able to at her age, anyway. We've… well, I guess I've always hoped you might come back one day," she admits. "We've talked about it. She's always known, I've just told her more as she's got older. She knows it's degenerative. I haven't used that word with her, obviously, but she understands what it means."

"Does she know I'll… one day…?"

"Yes." She squeezes his hand tightly, as though maybe, just maybe, she can keep him here with her forever. "Yes, she knows. We've talked about that. We… me dad, he had another heart attack last year. He's fine now, but it was touch and go for a while. So we had the whole death conversation then. I mean, we don't exactly have a close relationship with him nowadays, but…"

"He's still your dad," Ethan finishes for her. "I know."

Chakra stirs between them, yawns, stretches, whimpers, and Ethan pales, out of his depth.

"I'll get her out," Alicia promises. "We'll leave you in peace, okay, you can go back to sleep for a while."

He smiles gratefully, arms twitch. "Thank you."

"It's fine, it's fine. Come and join us whenever. Or don't, whatever. Do whatever you need. Chakra?" She runs her fingers through her daughter's hair. "Chakra, you waking up?"

Chakra blinks, sleepy, clings. "Mammy…"

"Yep, I think you're getting there, aren't you? Come on." She wraps her arms around her, pulls her up with her, pushes off the bed awkwardly under the extra weight. "Ethan's not feeling great, so we're going to leave him in peace, okay? Ethan needs to sleep some more."

"Is it morning?"

"Yep, it's morning. But we're not in a rush, okay, I think we're going to stay in with Ethan today. But he's not feeling very well, so we might have to just leave him to rest. We can do that, can't we? We can entertain ourselves here."

Chakra nods, buries her face in her mother's hair, and Alicia groans, holds her tight.

She's fully aware she's treating her daughter like a baby, but it's so hard not to when she's like this.

"Mammy?"

"Hmm?"

"Mammy, I don't want to go to school next week."

"Oh my goodness, you've only just woken up and you're already worrying about that? That has to be a new record, even for you. It's only Tuesday. And you're not going on Monday either way, are you, because I'm seeing Helen on Monday to see what she thinks about school. I'm not going to send you in late the first time, that would be really mean." This is what frustrates her, Alicia sighs to herself; everyone else, Chakra's school, the GP, the paeds registrar, they're all listening to Chakra's words, not her tone.

She knows her own daughter well enough to know that this isn't just reluctance, this is pure panic. She can hear it in her voice.

"Why don't you want to go, Chak?" she tries carefully. She leans against the kitchen counter, arms aching. "Can you tell me why?"

"I don't like it there."

"No? You loved your old school though, didn't you? And you loved this one the first couple of weeks you were there in September, too. That's the bit that I'm finding a little bit confusing. We all have to do things we don't want to sometimes. Sometimes I don't want to go to work, but I always go anyway. And it's never actually that bad, once I'm there." Well, most of the time, Alicia tells herself, but that isn't going to help, however rage-in-resus-like she suspects Chakra might find the school playground.

"No one likes me."

"Hey, I've already told you, that isn't true. How could anyone not like you, sweetheart? You're kind, you're generous, you're friendly…"

"You're my mammy, you have to say that."

"Nope, I don't. I also get to tell you if you're a total nightmare, don't I? That goes both ways. And I can't think of a single reason nobody at school would like you, okay? I promise. I wouldn't lie to you about that. Everyone likes you at gym, don't they? Everyone liked you at your old school. So unless you turn into a total monster every time you head into that place… see, that made you smile, didn't it? You just haven't got to know them properly yet, that's all. You all need to get to know each other and then it won't be so bad. You might even enjoy it."

There's a gentle pressure on her scalp, small hands caught in her hair, fidgeting, agitated. "You said you wouldn't make me go back…"

"If you didn't feel safe," Alicia finishes for her. "I know. And I'm not going back on that, Chakra, I promise I'm not. But that doesn't just mean you can stop going to school altogether, okay? Not permanently, anyway. It means we need to try and think of ways to make you feel safe there, so you can go back. You are _far_ too clever to be a primary school drop-out. You know," she says softly, rests her chin on the top of Chakra's head. "It would really, really help, Chakra, if you could try to tell me what it is about school that makes you feel unsafe. See, I think when you say you don't feel safe, you don't mean physically, you mean… oh, how can I explain this… you know what physically means, right? I don't think you mean you're afraid someone's going to hurt you, do you? I think you just mean that school makes you feel really, really sad. Am I right?"

Chakra nods against her chest, closes her eyes.

"Okay. Well, thank you for telling me. I thought so, but I'm glad you told me. And is that why it makes you feel sick?"

"Helen thinks I'm making myself be sick, but I'm not."

"No, I know you're not, sweetheart. I believe you. I think it's all just got a bit out of proportion in your head, hasn't it? But that's okay, we can fix that. That's what I mean, okay? If Helen says I have to send you back to school on Tuesday then we're going to give it a try. But if it's awful, all you have to do is tell me, and we'll rethink. I promise. But in return, I need you to promise me you're going to give it a try, when you do go back. Whenever you do go back. Okay. You're usually really good at making friends, aren't you? It's going to be like a fresh start, you can start all over again with everyone…"

"Sophia won't let me have a fresh start."

"Yes, she will. It's been two months, she'll have grown up a bit by now. Or she'll have found someone else to mess with, if nothing else. She'll have moved on. You've got to try and be positive about it, when we do try school again, okay? Don't let her mess with you. You keep away from her, you make other friends and it'll all be fine. You don't have to be best friends with her, you just have to show her that you're not going to take any of her rubbish anymore, okay? Let it all wash over you. You're better than her." Alicia thinks of Lily, those first awful few weeks at Holby ED. "And if she does say anything, you just go and tell your teacher, or whoever's in the playground. Straight away. You walk away, you tell them exactly what she said and you let them deal with it. You promise?"

"So I _do_ have to go back properly even if it's still awful?" Chakra's voice is laced with panic and betrayal.

"No, that isn't what I meant, sweetheart. I'm putting you down now, okay, just so I can put the kettle on." She turns on the tap, flips the switch, ponders for a moment. "Do we take Ethan coffee, do you think? Or do we leave him in peace. What do you reckon?"

"We should take him coffee, because adults are really grumpy if they don't have coffee when they wake up. Except Auntie Ruby."

"Fair point. Coffee it is, then. And do you want one of Auntie Ruby's awful cherry blossom matcha things?"

"They're not awful, they're amazing."

"You only think that because Auntie Ruby managed to indoctrinate you before I realised what she was doing. Just don't tell Ethan I let you have this, okay?"

"Why?"

"Because people don't usually give their kids herbal tea, and I don't want him to think I'm crazy just yet."

"Auntie Ruby says in Japan children drink green tea because it has lots of antibodies in it."

"I think you mean antioxidants. Probably. Auntie Ruby's the health food queen, we'll have to take her word for it. Now listen to me." She crouches down, holds her daughter's hands. "I'm not going to keep making you go back into school if you go in on Tuesday, or whenever you try going back, and it's awful. I promise. I need you to do your bit too, I need you to give it a proper try, but I'm not going to keep sending you back in there if it's as bad as it was last time. Whatever Helen says. I'm your mam, I know you better than she does."

"Mrs Davis said if I don't go to school you have to pay a fine and you might have to go to prison."

"She did? Right… I didn't know she told you that. That's… interesting. Did she tell you anything else like that? No? Okay, well that's good." Alicia mentally adds it to her list of complaints to bring up in her next email to Chakra's school. "You let me worry about that, okay?"

"So it isn't true?"

"No, it's not true. She's just got a bit confused, that's all. Might be best not to tell her that, though, when you next see her. All I need you to do is to give school a try whenever you do go back, okay? And then I need you to tell me honestly how it is. I'll worry about everything else. That's my job. I'm not going to keep sending you back somewhere that's making you ill, Chakra, I promise. You, sweetheart, have nothing to worry about. I'm going to do the worrying."

"But I don't want you to be sad," Chakra protests, so completely adorable that Alicia thinks her heart might just melt.

"Hey, you're silly, aren't you? Really sweet, but really silly. These things are much easier for adults to fix, okay? You're seven, you're practically still a baby…"

"I'm not a baby."

"You are, you're my baby. And I love you, so much, and you will always have me to fight your corner. So please, stop worrying. For me. You promise?"

Chakra pauses for a moment, hesitant, and for a moment Alicia thinks she's going to protest. "Promise."

"Good girl. Now, can you do me a favour? If I give you this." She places the second mug of coffee into Chakra's hands. "Can you take it in for Ethan? Just put it on the bedside table if he's asleep, but leave him in peace either way, please. We need to let him rest."

It's the perfect strategy, Alicia considers, as she watches her daughter make her way down the hallway, clutching the mug of coffee.

Ethan can think she's only filled it halfway because she's allowed Chakra to bring it in for him and she doesn't trust her not to spill the contents, when in fact it's the tremor in his hands, more pronounced today, that's worrying her.

"Ethan says thank you," Chakra tells her, reappearing in the living room. "He said soya milk was his favourite, but then he made a face, like this." She demonstrates, forces a smile.

"Oh, he did, did he? That sounds about right. He can count himself lucky I remember how much he hates black coffee. Come and sit with me." She wraps her arm around her daughter's shoulders, hands her the mug. "There you go, that one's yours. Far too green for human consumption, that. Chakra," she says carefully. "Chakra, how would you feel if we took Ethan back home with us, on Sunday? Tell me honestly."

"Like, forever?"

"Well, I don't know. For a few days. If he wanted to, anyway. He might say no. I haven't asked him yet, I wanted to see what you thought first."

"Why?"

"Because… because you're my baby girl, and no matter what, you always come first, okay? We haven't done this before, have we? You get to vet my potential boyfriends."

Chakra frowns. "Even if he's my dad?"

"Yes, even if he's your dad. I'm not going to bring a man into your life unless you approve, full stop."

"Why does he want me to call him Ethan?"

"Oh… I don't know," Alicia admits. It's the question she's been dreading- one of them, at least. "I don't know, Chak, and it's probably best you don't ask him just yet. I think… it'll have all been a bit of a shock to him," she explains carefully. "When he left… we weren't sure how ill you were going to be, we weren't sure if I was going to… miscarry… when I was pregnant with you. Do you know what that means?"

"Like Auntie..."

"Yep, that's it. We… we didn't know if that was going to happen to you. We thought it might. This was only a couple of weeks after Ethan was told he had Huntington's Disease, I think it was just all too much for him to cope with and he convinced himself you were going to be really ill, too. I don't think he ever thought he'd have a daughter. He loves you, sweetheart, I promise. He always did, he didn't leave because he didn't love you. It might just take him a little while to get his head around that he's your dad, that's all."

"When did he leave?"

"Oh… when I was about four months pregnant with you."

She really should have seen these questions coming, Alicia curses herself. It was inevitable, really; Chakra must be getting to the age now at which it wouldn't be unusual for her to start asking questions anyway, even if it weren't for Ethan's sudden entry into her life.

She should have anticipated this, prepared for it, worked out what on earth she was going to say. Except she hasn't, and now the moment has come and she's so painfully out of her depth.

"When did you know I wasn't going to die?"

Her choice of words is so painfully blunt, matter-of-fact, that it throws Alicia for a moment. It makes sense, of course; she's only a child, sees the world in simple terms, black and white.

She's far too young to even begin to understand, and yet she's also probably getting to the point at which she's going to want to, and Alicia just doesn't know how to bridge that gap.

"Well… I was almost six months pregnant, when I knew… that. But then you were still really ill when you were born, we were quite worried about you for a while."

"Because I had exomphalos?"

"Exactly."

"Did I have to _have_ surgery?" Chakra frowns, unimpressed.

"Well, it was that or leave you with your intestines outside your body. So I probably made the right decision for you really, didn't I?"

"Did Mrs Beauchamp do it?"

"What? No, no, not Mrs Beauchamp. A neonatal surgeon did it, do you know what that means? It's a special kind of surgeon who operates on babies."

"Couldn't they have given me less scars?"

"Well, no, probably not, it's major surgery." Alicia pulls her into her side, hugs her tightly. "You, sweetheart, are beautiful just as you are."

"Were you there?"

"No… I was in another part of the hospital."

"Because you had to have an operation too?"

"… Yes. Yes, that's it. But Auntie Bea was there, she observed."

"Will Ethan feel better tomorrow?"

It's amazing, Alicia considers, how quickly children can jump from one trail of thought to another.

"I don't know," she admits honestly. "I don't know, Chakra, we're going to have to wait and see, aren't we? I hope so."

Chakra falls silent for a moment, nods slowly. "Yes," she says at last.

"Hmm?"

"Yes, Ethan can be your boyfriend. He can come home with us."

"Oh, okay, I'm with you now. Well, thank you. I'm glad you approve. Just don't use that word in front of Ethan, alright? You promise? It might freak him out."

Chakra frowns. "So is he your boyfriend, or isn't he your boyfriend?"

"Oh… adults don't really use that word instantly, Chak. It's not like when you're at school, with adults… it just kind of happens naturally. Slowly. We'll have to see."

"So he might be your boyfriend, but you don't know yet?"

"Exactly. You mustn't tell Ethan we've talked about this, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good girl. Come on, then, what do you want for breakfast?"

"I don't."

Alicia sighs. "Yes, you do."

"I'm not hungry."

"No? You probably just don't think you are. Come on, I'm making you porridge. And don't look at me like that, I know for a fact you ate the porridge Nana made you on Friday."

"Mammy…"

"Chakra. Come on. I want you to try, okay? Please?" _Please try, Helen said I have to make you try_ , she murmurs under her breath. "I had a text from Auntie Bea this morning," she tries. "She's sent me some photos; do you want to see?"

"Of Morgana and Guinevere?"

"Yep. There you go." She unlocks her phone, brings up her messages from Bea, hands it over. "They look pretty happy, don't they? They're managing without you. I'm sure they can't wait to have you back, though."

"Mammy, I think Auntie Bea must have lost my letter."

"What makes you say that?"

"I told her Guinevere likes carrots and Morgana likes beetroot, but she's given Guinevere beetroot."

"Has she? I think you're going to have to explain to us both how to tell them apart again, it's probably a case of mistaken identity."

"Can I text Auntie Bea and explain they have completely different ears?"

"They do? Yes, you can, but later. Auntie Bea's on nights all week, we don't want to wake her up. Right, what do you want with your porridge? Okay, fine," she sighs at the unimpressed look on her daughter's face. "Fine, I'll pick for you then." She desperately casts her mind back to that post-night shift phone conversation with her mam, tries to remember what she'd said she'd managed to feed her. "What on earth are you doing?"

"Bird of paradise."

"Of course you are. Do you think maybe you could not do that in the kitchen? Maybe? I don't let you do it in _my_ kitchen, do I, I really, really don't want you to break anything in somebody else's kitchen."

"You're just jealous you can't do it."

"Maybe, but at least I won't need a hip replacement by the time I'm forty," Alicia teases her. "You, on the other hand… Right, so you're going to eat your breakfast, and then I'm going to show you what I thought we could do tomorrow, okay? If Ethan's feeling better, anyway. How does that sound?"

Chakra sniffs at the bowl on the kitchen counter suspiciously. "Have you put weird stuff in it?"

"I've done exactly what Nana did on Friday. You can see what I've put in it, can't you? You can leave anything you don't want, okay, as long as you eat some of it."

"How much is some?"

"Three quarters?"

"Half?"

"Five eighths, and that's my final offer. Right, come on, come and sit down." _Positive environment, make sure she's not the only one eating, avoid the topic altogether…_ "What do you think of this, Chakra?" she asks, turns her phone screen towards her daughter. Maybe this is the wrong thing to do, maybe she should just do what Helen suggested last time, leave her, avoid physical distractions like this, but surely she knows her own daughter well enough by now to work out what does and doesn't work?

Chakra pauses for a moment, stares at the screen. "Is that near the tor?"

"It is, it's right at the bottom, near the car park. How we didn't spot it last time, I don't know, we're usually really good at finding this kind of thing, aren't we?"

"Can you drink the water?"

"You can. It's supposed to have special healing properties, but I think it's probably just got lots of iron in it."

"Why?"

"Because it's red, can you see? That red tint usually means water has iron in it. All the pilgrims who thought the water cured them of all their ailments were probably just severely iron deficient. And I think there's even a story about how the water's red because it's supposed to represent King Arthur's blood, or something."

Chakra takes one mouthful, swallows, plays with the spoon. "Is that why the pilgrims went there?"

"I'm not sure, I think it's supposed to represent Jesus's blood, too. I think the original pilgrims were probably more interested in that."

"Mammy, you know you told me the Isle of Avalon was where King Arthur lived?"

"Hmm?"

"You're rubbish at history."

Alicia laughs. "Am I? Well, I don't think that's anything we didn't already know. What have I got wrong this time?"

"Avalon isn't where King Arthur lived at all. He lived in Camelot."

"Now, to be fair, I did think that, but then I googled Avalon and it mentioned King Arthur…"

"That's because it's where King Arthur was taken after Mordred mortally wounded him in the final battle."

"Do you actually know what that means?"

"Yes, it means he died from his injuries. Except he doesn't die in the story, because when he's taken to Avalon, he gets suspended in time, so one day he can return to his old life and rule England when he's really needed, and that's why he's called the once and future king."

"Is there anything about King Arthur you don't know?"

"I don't know where the man the King Arthur stories are really about is buried?"

"Nope, and I think you'll be like, the most famous, successful archaeologist ever, if you can work that one out. Eat your breakfast, sweetheart, you're not going to want it once it's cold. So shall we do that tomorrow then, if Ethan's feeling better?"

Chakra nods, systematically picks out the fruit, expression, Alicia considers, far too troubled for a seven-year-old. "Mammy, is that five eighths?"

"Little bit more? We'll ask him later, then, if he's awake. We might have to go over to Ethan's place and get him some clean clothes later."

"Can we go to the park on the way back?"

"We can, if you eat some more of your breakfast. We don't want you fainting on the climbing frame, do we?"

"I'll be fine."

"I know that's what you think, Chak, but I'd be much happier if you can eat some more of that, please. And then I promise we can go to the park, via Ethan's place."

"Will Kerry be working today?"

"I don't know. But let's hope not, shall we, the last thing you need is even more weird Celtic folk stories. Hey, I'm joking. Just as long as you two aren't going to waste all my phone storage with more of her music, I've already got enough of yours and Auntie Bea's stuff on there."

"We could buy the CD and play it in the car?"

"Is that your idea of a compromise?"

"Yes. Mammy, I'm done."

"Are you sure? Go and put the rest of it in the bin, then," Alicia tells her, fights to keep her tone light. She waits until she's disappeared into the kitchen before she reaches for her phone, types out a message to her mam.

 _You managed to get C to eat on Friday morning, right? Was she upset when she woke up? Just trying to piece some things together X_

"Mammy, when are we going out?"

"Soon as we're ready?" Alicia suggests. Perhaps it's best they leave Ethan in peace for a while, she decides, give him the chance to drift back to sleep whilst they're out and the house is quiet, bring Chakra back once she's worked off most of her energy, more likely to be relatively quiet for the rest of the day. "Have you actually brushed your hair this morning?"

"Yes, but then I was practicing chin stands in the living room and now it's all knotty."

"Well, it would be, wouldn't it? Bring me your hairbrush down, okay, I'll sort it."

Her phone vibrates on the kitchen table.

 _Mam: Not that I noticed. She was fine, we fed her rabbits and then I gave her breakfast, she was like a completely different child to the last time I had her. What are you thinking? X_

Alicia sighs.

 **To every single one of you who has taken the time to review, and particularly to my wonderful new guest reviewer- thank YOU for all your support. Catherine4, TheVeryStuffOfLife, 20BlueRoses and my 4 guests, you are all fantastic and I am so grateful for all of you. As I think I mentioned in the last chapter, I had a terrible, terrible week last week, and you all made it a little bit brighter.**

 **I have something really special (for me, anyway!) planned for the next chapter that I really hope you will love too, but for a few of chapters' time, I am appealing to you wonderful people for your help:**

 **I need to write Alicia telling her mum and the rest of the ED she's pregnant, and I have no idea how I want to do it! If you have any ideas at all re how you would like me to do it (or equally not to do it, it all helps me make a decision!), please do let me know, whether it's an idea for the whole chapter or a small part of it, either by review or DM, and I promise you will be given credit in the finished chapter :)**

 **As ever, reviews would be wonderful,**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

 ** _14 weeks_**

"Alicia and Ethan? Do you want to come through?"

They're startled out of their trance, the two of them, silent, tense, follow the geneticist through into her office limbs still tangled around one another, clinging tightly.

There's nothing left to say, Alicia ponders numbly. They've been through it all, over and over, tortured themselves with it all too many times since this whole nightmare commenced, and there's nothing left to say, nothing they can do but go through the motions.

This is a formality, today, for the two of them. That's the curse of being doctors, she supposes; they already know exactly where this is going, the horrendous choice they're going to have to make. But it's more even than that. They don't just know how this is going to go today, the possibilities that will be laid out to them, they also know what they're going to choose, know because it's the only option, really- for them, at least.

They haven't slept. Ethan had stayed over the previous night, the two of them curled up together, Alicia shivering against his chest, cold, anxious, still, Ethan gripping her tightly, silent, banned from apologising and yet so clearly desperate to keep telling her, guilt-ridden, broken, powerless.

It's strange to think that just two weeks ago, she was so happy. Two weeks ago, she was a little worried about Ethan, yes, but she had put it down to stress and fatigue, the extra hours he was working to cover her study leave, yet another thing she had missed in her registrar exam-induced panic.

Two weeks ago, she had been locked in the bathroom staring at a plastic stick, heart fluttering, excited, her only worries her looming registrar exams and whether perhaps it was a little too soon for her and Ethan to be having a baby, but she was imagining some mild initial panic, nothing major.

She certainly never imagined this.

"Take a seat. I'm Dr Sutton, you can call me Claire."

"Thank you," Ethan says shakily, squeezing Alicia's hand. "For fitting us in so quickly."

"It's not a problem. I've known Connie Beauchamp a long time, we were in medical school together. I was more than happy to slot you in when she contacted me, I'm just sorry we're not meeting in better circumstances. Now, you know today isn't about making a decision either way, don't you? Even if you're both sure how you want to proceed, I'm going to ask you to go away and think on it some more before we take any action either way, okay? I need you to be sure you're making the right decision for both of you. I know this must have all come as a bit of a shock. So Mrs Beauchamp said she's estimated you at fourteen weeks as of this week, based on the dates you gave her, is that right? Alicia?"

Alicia startles. "Sorry. Yes, that's right. Sorry, I just…"

"It's alright. We can take this as slowly as you need to. And have you registered with your GP?"

She shakes her head. "I don't see the point, not until we know…"

"I'm going to need you in the system before I can refer you for prenatal diagnosis, if you decide that's what you want to do. I don't need to explain that to you two, do I; we can go straight for diagnosis, given we already know Ethan's status, it's a simpler test. I'll write you a referral letter, you'll need to take it to your GP when you register, they'll be able to put you through for an amniocentesis appointment."

"Amniocentesis?" Ethan repeats. "She's only fourteen weeks, I thought at this stage…"

"Usually we'd use CVS at this stage, yes, but no later. I'll need to allow you a week to be sure of your decision before I recommend you for prenatal diagnosis; realistically, by the time Alicia's been referred, we're looking at amniocentesis. It's usually a two week wait for this kind of testing. This is why I need you to register with your GP now, Alicia," Claire tells her gently. "If you decide you want to go through with this, you're still going to be carrying this baby for at least another month before we have your results. We're going to have to work on the basis that you'll be going ahead with this pregnancy in the meantime, in the interests of looking after both of you. Here." She holds out a box of tissues as Alicia's eyes begin to flood with tears, Ethan pulling her into his chest and this is so out of character for him, she realises vaguely, wiping furiously at her eyes, fighting to slow her breathing. This is so not Ethan, ever-professional; clearly, she's doing an even worse job of holding herself together than she thought.

"I'm sorry," she whispers through her tears. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Alicia," Ethan tells her firmly. "Nothing. You understand? This is all my fault, you have nothing to be sorry for. It's me, I should have told you, I should have made sure we were more careful…"

She shakes her head, distraught. "You're the one who's just been diagnosed, on top of all this, I should be the one supporting you…"

"You need to give yourself more credit. I'm not the one who's got to actually go through this pregnancy knowing…" he sighs, holds her tight, strokes her hair, and as hard as she tries, Alicia just can't block out the slight tremor to his hands, jerking movements, classic early symptoms she's sure have worsened since this whole nightmare began. "I'm sorry. If I could do this for you, I would. I really would. I can't even imagine how hard this must be for you."

"I think you should listen to him," Claire the genetics counsellor smiles gently. "He's a keeper, this one."

Alicia smiles faintly. "You can't have him, he's mine."

"No, of course he is, but I made you smile, didn't I? Do you want to take a break, Alicia?"

She shakes her head, adamant. "I just want to get this over with."

"Okay. Ethan?"

"I'm fine, I just want what's best for Alicia."

"Alright, if you're both sure. Now, I'm assuming you've both read the leaflets I sent over? You understand that if you decide to opt for prenatal diagnosis…"

"We're agreeing to terminate if it's inherited my catastrophic genes," Ethan finishes for her grimly. "We know."

"And how do you feel about that?"

"Honestly? Guilty. Horrifically so, that Alicia's having to go through this because of me. That we're going to have to…" he shakes his head. "But this is a death sentence, this disease. I can't put a child through it. Any pain now at my expense is better than my child having to suffer a miserable death at the hands of this."

Claire nods slowly. "Alicia?"

"I…" Alicia shudders, bile rising in the back of her throat. "I don't know if I could do it," she admits honestly. "I don't know how I would bear it. But I know I couldn't live with myself knowing how they might have to suffer because I couldn't do the right thing, so…" She shakes her head. "I don't want to do it. I never thought I'd do this, but the alternative's too horrible to think about, so… But then…" She clings to Ethan, thoughts a total mess. "But then I look at you, and I think, if your mam had known, if… I'd never have had you…"

"Do we have to go through this?" Ethan asks desperately. "She's exhausted, she shouldn't be this stressed, it's not good for her, on the off-chance there's a happy ending to this it's not good for the baby…"

"It's 50/50, Ethan," Claire reminds him gently. "It could go either way."

"You don't know how my luck works. Believe me, it will be positive. It'll be positive, and then Alicia will have to go through a termination…"

"You need to stop blaming yourself, Ethan. It's done. You can't change the fact that it's happening, we can only decide how you want to move forward from here. Normally, you'd have presented to me earlier than this, and we'd have had more time. If that would have been the case, I would have suggested that you both needed to take a couple of weeks to come to terms with your own illness, Ethan, before you make a decision on what to do with this pregnancy. But for Alicia's sake, I don't think we have time for that now. The longer we leave this at this stage, the more traumatic a termination would be, I don't need to tell you two that. If you don't have any other questions for now, I'm going to send you away to think about this. We call it the cooling off period. I'll schedule you in for another appointment in about a week's time, you can tell me what you've decided and we'll take it from there, okay? Can I ask you what you're thinking just now? Alicia?"

She trembles, grips Ethan's hand tightly. "I think we have to do it, don't we? I don't think we're going to be able to live with ourselves if we go ahead not knowing."

Ethan just nods, silent, nothing else to say.

"Okay. Like I said, you'll be booked in for another appointment in a week's time, we'll go through this again, discuss your final decision and we'll take it from there. Do you have any other questions?"

"I…" Alicia glances across to Ethan, knows exactly what she'll see; that same pained, guilt-ridden look in his eyes that's been permanently present ever since her blissfully happy confession had gone so horribly wrong. "I think we're okay, thank you."

"Alright. I'll give you my number, feel free to contact me at any time if you do think of anything. I'll see you in a week. It was nice to meet you both, I'm just sorry it's under these circumstances."

They grip each other's hands in the lift back down to the ED, silent, pensive, lost.

She can't quite accept this is happening, Alicia realises. It's as though she's trapped in some sort of nightmare; no part of her wants to believe that this is real and yet at the same time it's undeniable… the nausea, the faintest trace of a bump she somehow managed to miss until two weeks ago, caught up in exam stress, and of course the obvious…

She should have realised. This is her fault; all of it, whichever way she tries to look at it. She should have realised she was pregnant sooner, could have got this part out of the way before it became quite so critical, should have realised Ethan was hiding something months ago, encouraged him to confide in her before all this even happened. They could have been more careful then, could have gone down the IVF route if they did decide to have children, if Ethan would even have really wanted a child had all this not unfolded as it has. Perhaps he wouldn't, perhaps the Huntington's alone would be more than enough for him to be coping with had he been given the choice.

They should have used protection. They should have known better, _she_ should have known better, should have realised that even that one pathetically brief attempt to break her total mental block could have led to this, she should have done something about it the next morning, shouldn't have risked this.

Ethan's never exactly been a natural with children…

It's too early for a baby, really, even if it weren't for this nightmare.

Alicia does know that.

The trouble is, now she's finally tuned back into her own body and realised this baby exists, she can't imagine it any other way.

She's been fighting so hard not to get attached, but already Alicia is certain she's never wanted anything so much in her whole life.

"We should go straight to Mrs Beauchamp's office," Ethan says suddenly, breaking the silence. "We'll speak to Mrs Beauchamp, get you excused, I can drive you down to the GP… or maybe I shouldn't, I haven't got round to telling the DVLA yet, have I?" he curses, frustrated. "I hate this. I'm sorry…"

"Ethan," Alicia says gently. "Ethan, it's alright. It's not urgent, is it? The damage is already done…"

"Not, helping, Alicia, our baby is not…"

"Okay, okay, bad choice of words. You know what I mean. I'm off on Friday, I can make an appointment for then, there's no rush."

"But there is, though," Ethan protests. "You heard what she said in there, there's nothing Genetics can do without a GP referral. I've caused you enough pain already, the last thing I want is for you to have to go through this for any longer than you need to."

"It's a couple of days, Ethan. I'm fine, okay? There's no sense disappearing off now, I'm fine, I just want to finish this shift." She's not fine, of course, can't quite see how everything will ever be fine again, because even if they can keep this baby, even then, Ethan…

But she can't allow Ethan to sense that, not now, not when he's struggling so much with all this already.

Not any more than he will already know, at least.

She owes him that.

They pause at the end of the corridor, out of sight, and Ethan pulls her into a hug, holds her close with one hand, rests his other over her abdomen, the faintest traces of a bump beginning to form.

"I just…" he whispers, voice raw, trembles. "I just hate that you have to go through this."

"I know," Alicia says simply, rests her head against his chest in defeat. "Right back at you."

"Dr Munroe, Dr Hardy, my office, please." Mrs Beauchamp corners them before they're barely made it back into the ED, escorts them through her office door almost menacingly, daring anyone passing by to challenge her. "Take a seat." She closes the door firmly behind her, lowers the blinds. "How did it go?" she asks gently. "Do you want to talk?"

"I…" Alicia turns Ethan's hand over in hers, meets his eyes just for a moment, knows she'll find nothing but pain and regret there but somehow that doesn't make it any easier. "I think we're okay, for now," she decides at last. "Mrs Beauchamp, I'm so sorry about this morning…"

"It's alright, you don't have to apologise. I was exactly the same, when I was pregnant with Grace. You don't have to ask, just go, whenever you need, it's not a problem. I'm assuming you don't want to make an announcement just yet?"

Alicia shakes her head, adamant. "No one needs to know at this stage," she says firmly, though her voice wobbles. "I… if it's negative, we'll tell everyone, of course, but I just… I can't tell them and then…"

Ethan pulls her into his chest before she quite realises she's crying again, squeezes her shoulders, silent.

"No, no, I can understand that. And you, Ethan?" Mrs Beauchamp asks carefully. "It might help, to tell the ED? You'd have their full support, I'm sure…"

"No." Ethan's tone is almost a little panicked. "No, I don't want them to think… I mean…" he closes his eyes, pained. "They're going to find out eventually. But they don't need to know just now, I'm… I'm coping…"

Alicia isn't quite sure who he's trying harder to convince with those words.

"I know I'm going to have to quit practicing eventually," Ethan continues. "It's inevitable, I can't exactly… when I'm… oh, you know what I mean. I'm not going to be able to keep practicing for as long as I'd be able to keep working in an office, or something, am I, there's no point denying it. It'll all be over soon enough, it could be months, not years…"

"Yes," Mrs Beauchamp agrees gravely. "Yes, but there are options…"

"Like what?" Ethan snaps. "Like… I don't know… I sit and observe and bark orders at the F1s, and call someone else in whenever I need to demonstrate because my nervous system will be too buggered by then to as much as lift a scalpel without risking stabbing my patient in the… Sorry, sorry…" He shudders, blinks, almost confused, as though he can't quite get his head around the fact that this latest angry outburst has come from him. "This is what I mean," he says shakily, defeated, eyes plead with Alicia. "This is how it starts… the anger… I'm going to turn into some sort of monster and I don't want…"

"You don't know that, Ethan," Mrs Beauchamp reminds him gently. "Not all Huntington's patients develop aggressive symptoms…"

"But the majority of them do," Ethan protests. "I can't…" He avoids Alicia's eyes, glances down. "I can't put you through that, let alone a baby…"

"So what are you saying, then?" Alicia demands. She shouldn't, she tries to tell herself, she shouldn't raise her voice at him like this, not with everything he's going through, not when as much as she and Mrs Beauchamp want to reassure him deep down they both know that Ethan could well be right and this is just the start, but it's not just about Ethan; she's hormonal and she's pregnant and she doesn't know how she's supposed to feel about it anymore and it's a terrible combination. "What are you saying, that you want me to just book myself in for an abortion now and be done with it?"

There's a moment, just one, brief moment, as she waits for his response to her own angry outburst, in which Alicia is afraid she'll see rage and aggression in his eyes, that he'll snap, scream, lash out, the way she knows all too well from her own medical training Huntington's patients can.

It doesn't come. There's no anger, no hatred; instead, Ethan's expression softens and he pulls her back into his chest, squeezes, rests his chin on the crown of her head.

"No," he whispers. "No, of course not. I… I love you," he says softly. "This doesn't change that. Nothing could. I love you, I love this baby. I just…"

"I know," she tells him simply, closes her eyes. "I know."

 **I know I said I was going to stick to the present day storyline for a few chapters, but I've had terrible, terrible writers block with this all week, and I already had this mostly written. And actually I think now is probably a good place to fit this one in. Lots of you have been asking about the stairs chapter and I promise it's coming, it's just not quite the right moment for it yet. And before I give you that one, I really wanted to give you a sense of where Alicia and Ethan are in their relationship right before that happens.**

 **This also feels like an appropriate point to say that when I was planning this story, there were two main scenarios I wanted to explore. One of them I haven't got to yet, the other one is kind of going to remain unsaid throughout the whole thing. However, there is a really, really beautiful poignant dance piece on youtube that you can find if you search for 'Kaycee and Sean world of dance qualifiers,' that completely captures that theme, and I feel like if you do want to watch it, this might be a point in the story at which you'll get what I'm aiming for.**

 **Thank you as ever to my three guests for taking the time to review, your feedback is so appreciated. At the moment I'm experimenting with different ideas re Alicia announcing her pregnancy and still totally indecisive so it's not too late to tell me if you have any thoughts :)**

 **If you've made it to the end of this, thank you, you are wonderful! Reviews would be amazing, and I will hopefully crack my mental block with this next week and have a new chapter for you soon!**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

"Is it going to be like in The Secret Garden?" asks Chakra curiously.

"How do you mean?" Alicia looks up, pauses, previously preoccupied with throwing together something vaguely resembling lunch. "Where have you read that, anyway?"

"At Auntie Ruby's house. She has lots of books from a long time ago that she keeps for when I go to hers. Right now, we're reading Ballet Shoes."

"Really? I had no idea you liked those kinds of books, I'm going to have to up my Waterstones game, aren't I?"

"No, you pick good books too, just different kinds of books. I like the first Harry Potter book."

"Well, I'm glad to hear it, I'd be disowning you on the spot if you said you didn't like Harry Potter."

"Can we read the second one, when we go home?"

"We can. We might have to leave it for a while after number four though, okay?"

"Why?"

"Well, because I think you might be a little bit too young for number five onwards at the moment. We'll have to see."

"But you said you started reading Harry Potter when you were seven."

"Yes, I did. But JK Rowling was still writing the books when I was your age, I had to wait for them to come out. I used to make Granddad take me to the midnight releases, all the bookshops always opened specially. So I was a lot older than you by the time I read the later ones. I'll think about it. Okay? Anyway, so what do you mean, like in The Secret Garden?"

"Have you read it?"

"Yep, but years ago, so don't test me too much."

"Collin thinks he's really ill, but then he starts to have company again and he starts going outside into the garden and then he gets better."

"Oh, right. Okay…" Alicia groans, heart sinks. "Well, Ethan's not going to make a miraculous recovery, sweetheart, Huntington's Disease isn't like that."

"I know. But Ethan came out with us on Monday, and then he was really tired on Tuesday, and kind of yesterday. But today he wants to come out with us again, and he doesn't look grey anymore. Like he's happier. Even if he's still ill."

It's rather a good analogy for a seven-year-old, Alicia considers absentmindedly.

She more or less has Chakra down as destined to go into some weird, unconventional branch of medicine- holistic, perhaps, through Grad Med after a History and Archaeology degree and a few years digging up Celtic artefacts in the middle of nowhere- but she might surprise her yet and opt for English Literature.

"Oh, okay, I understand what you mean now. Maybe, Chak. I don't know. I think you're right though, I know what you mean. I don't think Ethan had been outside for even longer than Colin, properly outside, anyway. I do think he was probably tired because we were a little full on for him, not because he's ill. But you mustn't tell him I told you that, okay? Just in case we're wrong."

"What _is_ that?"

"It's ham. I bribed the landlady, Ethan doesn't like hummus. You can have some if you want to."

"No thank you. Did you know the Druids were vegans?"

"No, I didn't. Where on earth did you learn that?"

"Kerry told me, when you were getting clothes for Ethan. She thinks the man we saw at Glastonbury Tor was a druid. She says there are people in Glastonbury who are trying to reveal Druidism."

"Revive. Revive, not reveal."

"Revive. She says she wants your chocolate brownie recipe."

"Well, we can probably manage that. Why is it every time I leave you alone with Kerry for five minutes, you come away with more weird history facts?"

"She's working on reception where Ethan lives while she's waiting to find out if she has a place to do a PhD. It means she's going to be a doctor, except not a doctor like you and Auntie Bea, she's going to be a doctor of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic studies. If she gets her place. She wants to go to Cambridge, but she says it's really hard to get the university to give you money. That's why she's working on reception, so she can save up, just in case. Where did you go for university?"

"Newcastle. Didn't want to leave home, I guess, Nana and Granddad didn't move to Holby until the summer I graduated."

"Where did Ethan go?"

"St Andrews. In Scotland. Your Uncle Cal went to UCL, I think he wanted to go as far away from him as possible. Not… not because they didn't get on, just because they were both doing medicine, he wanted to be his own person, I guess. What do you think you might want to do, when you're older?"

"I haven't decided yet. Because I like history, and I like drawing, and Geography, but I want to be a doctor too." And then something changes in her eyes, rapid, drastic, goes from happy, childlike babbling to something far darker in a matter of seconds. "And I want to be a gymnast, but I'm too f…"

"Sorry, sorry." Ethan appears in the doorway, evidently with no idea he's interrupted anything at all. "Sorry, I know I said I wouldn't be long. Can I help with anything?"

"No, no, we're good. Thank you, though." Alicia glances between Ethan and Chakra, momentarily conflicted. "Right, shall we get going, then?" she suggests brightly, forces herself to smile, to deceive. "Chak, if I give you this, can you carry it out to the car for me?"

"So what did you say this place was, again?" Ethan frowns, limps slowly up the driveway (wheelchair abandoned in the car, despite Alicia's attempts to convince him otherwise).

"It's called Chalice Well, it's like a spiritual garden place. It's just supposed to be very peaceful."

"And she's going to be quiet and peaceful, is she?" Ethan gestures doubtfully to Chakra, skipping ahead of them happily, singing something incomprehensible to herself that Bea may or may not be responsible for, as though that brief earlier conversation that started so innocent and might just have gotten them both somewhere is all but forgotten.

"Hey, you'd be surprised. Would you have been quiet and peaceful at her age?"

Ethan shrugs. He's seen enough, Alicia reasons, enough in the few brief days he's known his daughter to realise exactly who she takes after temperament-wise, and it most certainly isn't her.

She scans the admission board, watches her daughter protectively. "Two adults and a child, please."

"I'm paying." Ethan pulls his card from his wallet before Alicia can rummage through her handbag in time.

"You don't have to do that…"

"Don't be silly. I want to." He inserts his card into the card reader; mercifully, Alicia notes, the tremor to his hands is significantly less obvious today.

"Do you have a guidebook?" Chakra peers over the counter at the receptionist, curious.

"I don't, but I can give you a map, that has some information on it, just there."

"Can you definitely drink the water?"

"Wow, you don't need the information on the map, do you, you already know everything. You can definitely drink the water. We have bottles you can use, but you'll have to talk nicely to Daddy, if he's paying."

Both of them squirm a little, Ethan and Chakra, uncomfortable, strange, new territory.

"Oh… sure, that's fine," Ethan covers hurriedly. "… Card, please."

"Can I collect the water?"

"You can, let's just wait for our tickets, okay? There you go then, you hold that. Thank you," Alicia smiles gratefully at the receptionist. "Come on then, I think we start this way."

"Why are you treating me like a baby?"

"I'm not," Alicia tells her, though she removes her hands from Chakra's shoulders, guilty as charged, reaches for her hand instead.

How can she tell her she hasn't been this worried about her since she was finally discharged from NICU, that she knows she has a point but it's just not that easy?

"Nana would like these." Chakra points to the flower beds, first signs of life beginning to bloom.

"She would," Alicia agrees. "March probably wasn't the best time to come, was it, it's probably much prettier in summer."

"I still think it's pretty. Are those snowdrops?"

"I think so. We'll have to take a photo for Nana and ask her, she's the expert." She squeezes Chakra's hand as the pass under the archway, trying to slow her down, more than anything, conscious that they're probably reaching a pace at which Ethan is no longer going to be able to keep up with them.

"I think this is the pool… the King Arthur pool. It looks cold."

"It's probably freezing."

"Can you get in?"

"I think that's the idea, yes. It's because people think the water's got healing powers."

"Please can you hold my shoes?"

"You're not actually going in, are you? Oh my goodness, you're crazy."

"It's the King Arthur pool."

"Okay, okay, stupid question. But you just put your feet in. It's going to be freezing, Chak. It's not deep, look, it would probably only come up to your calves if you were an adult, but you're only little, so you stay on the top step, please. I haven't got you any dry clothes."

"Are you doing it too, Ethan?"

"Oh… no, you can tell me how cold it is," Ethan tells her, lowers himself precariously onto the nearby bench. "That looks really, really cold, Chakra…"

"I know." She abandons her shoes and socks at Alicia's feet and then she's gone, skips, halts at the edge of the pool steps, tentatively dips in her toes.

"You know you can change your mind, right?" Alicia calls. "We won't tease you, we promise."

"I'm not going to." Chakra wanders along the edge of the steps, tiptoes, clings to the rail.

"I knew there had to be some of Cal in her somewhere," Ethan comments, as Alicia sits down beside him. "Cal would have been all over that."

"He would have dived in. She's definitely more like you, though."

"How long do you reckon she's going to last?" he asks, winces a little as Chakra lowers down onto her feet.

"Honest answer? Either two hours or two minutes. She's seriously zenned out, our daughter, it's a bit uncanny at times. Except, you know, when she isn't."

"You named her Chakra."

"Fair point."

"She _is_ like you, you know. Okay, so there's a lot of me in her, personality wise," Ethan adds, at Alicia's raised eyebrows. "There's no way I was that chilled out at her age. At any age, actually. Always have worried about everything."

"Oh, believe me, she's pretty good at that too. She just spends the rest of the time in her own little world, that's all. Yoga works wonders."

"You take her to yoga?"

"Why not? She likes it, she stays quiet for the whole class, doesn't bother anyone. I'm not the only one, it's the easiest childcare solution, sometimes, just take them with you. She thinks it's brilliant, though I think that's more because she gets to lie happily in the splits while all the adults around her try to rediscover their toes. Believe me, she can stay quiet for an hour and a half when she wants to."

"Did I interrupt something this morning?" Ethan asks. "It looked like you two were…"

Alicia shakes her head. "It's fine. Seven year old chatter, that's all. Nothing important."

How can she tell him?

 **I have a terrible confession to make.**

 **So you know when it's your birthday, you take in cake at university/school/work etc? I had plans to give you a normal chapter and a double upload as an internet equivalent of bringing in cake this** **weekend, and then I had the week from complete and utter hell and all my plans were sabotaged. And annoyingly, all I had written was half of two chapters, and I'm most likely not going to have time to do anything with them for a few days. So this was originally half a chapter, and has been edited slightly to make it part one of two chapters, because I really did want to give you something this weekend and it wasn't going to happen otherwise! I'm sorry! I hope the ending doesn't feel too abrupt, and I'm sorry it's such a short one, I just didn't want to leave you with nothing.**

 **Chalice Well is a real place in Glastonbury and honestly one of the most beautiful, peaceful serene places on this earth, I highly, highly recommend. I set this story in Glastonbury partly so I could use the King Arthur mythology, but mostly because I wanted Chakra to 'find' her dad in Glastonbury. Chalice Well ended up being the last place I went with my own dad before he died unexpectedly, so it has a very special place in my heart, and I think some of you know that I only started writing for Casualty at all because Chelsea's final scenes in this summer's season finale reduced me to a sobbing wreck- this was after being unable to feel any real emotion whatsoever for about a year.**

 **Thank you every one of you who has taken the time to review over the last 20 chapters, you are all stars. Thank you for making my return to creative writing after aforementioned tragedy so special. That I have een able to do keep writing this at all is down to YOU!**

 **as ever, your feedback is always appreciated,**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	22. Chapter 22

**So don't laugh. I know I said I wasn't going to be able to finish off the other 'half' of the last chapter for a few days, which is why I put it up as it was, but there has been a slight change of plan.**

 **When I put the last chapter up, this was originally going to be the other half of that chapter. I wrote it out of sequence, so when I split it, I had the first couple of lines of this chapter and the ending written, it was the middle that needed writing. Then I caught up on last night's episode this afternoon, and realised the Casualty writers and I are on the same wavelength again. Basically, I had the final part of this chapter sorted BEFORE I saw that episode. I am not the writers, I promise! But that episode did give me a sudden surge of inspiration and I managed to sketch out the middle parts in the little time I had today, so as it turns out I could have given you the whole thing together after all. It was then irrationally annoying me that I had it split in half, so I thought about saving this one for next week, but in the end I decided to just give you it now. (And I also thought the longer I leave it to upload this, the less likely you are to believe I wrote it before the episode aired!). I hope that makes some vague sort of sense, and you enjoy part two of the disaster chapter.**

 **Before I leave you in peace, I have one question for you. I have a Ruby-heavy chapter and a chapter that will reveal why Alicia has been so worried about Chakra, both half finished. Do you have any preferences for which comes next?**

 **As ever, your reviews honestly make my day- and please do feel free to tell me what you don't like as well! And thank you Katie for your wonderful message on the last chapter, I am so glad you like this story. (And my week did get a lot, lot better, thank you!)**

 **The stair scene is still coming, but you may be able to more or less work it out now...**

 **-IseultLaBelle**

 **Chapter 22**

"So, you have to be really, really quiet and still in here, Chakra, okay?" Alicia tells her as they head along the path, slow, ever-conscious that this is most likely the furthest Ethan has walked in years, that this is going to be pushing him right to his limits, quite possibly beyond them.

He's going to suffer for this tomorrow, and both of them know it. Maybe even Chakra, knows it, too.

And yet they seem to have reached some sort of unspoken agreement between them that for these few hours of precious time spent together, it's all worth it.

"Isn't this the bit where you can collect the well water?"

"Well yes, it is, but the bit where people meditate is just through there, you see? So really quiet and still once we're in there, yes, you're right, but it's probably best you talk quietly in here too, okay? We don't want to disturb them."

"Why do people meditate?"

"Like, in general? Or here?"

"Here."

"I have no idea. People think there's some kind of spiritual energy here, I guess. You'll have to ask Kerry next time you see her, won't you? She's befriended the receptionist at your place," she explains to Ethan quickly. "They've bonded over weird bits of history and Celtic fairy stories."

"Why are all the fairy stories in films really boring?" Chakra asks, kneels in front of the flow of water, struggles with the lid of the water bottle, holds it out to Alicia. "Can you help, please?"

"Are you seriously dismissing the Little Mermaid as boring?" Alicia asks, mock horror, unscrews the lid, hands it back.

"In Celtic fairy tales, they don't have mermaids, they have selkies. They're like seals, but they're magic ones, and they can turn into humans, but they always have to go back into the sea in the end. Except usually they fall in love with real humans, and then they either have to die of broken hearts because they can't live in the air and their… their… their girlfriends and boyfriends can't live underwater, so the humans have to find special magic seal skins, and then they can turn into selkies too, and they can live in the sea. That's more interesting than the Little Mermaid." She crouches, fills up the water bottle, sniffs, frowns. "It smells like blood."

"It's iron," Ethan tells her. "Do you know what iron is?"

"It's a mineral, and if you don't have enough of it, you have anaemia."

 _Please don't tell him_ , Alicia pleads internally.

"That's right. That's a big word, isn't it, I don't think many people your age would know that."

"I like science." Chakra shrugs. "Science is interesting, because when you look at your skin, or your blood, or… or stuff like that, you wouldn't know how many different minerals and enzymes and… and bones, you have. And doctors are kind of like wizards, because they can look at you and they can just tell you what's wrong with you."

"Quite right. Did Mummy train you to say that?"

"No, Auntie Bea did." She raises the water to her lips, tests, pulls a face. "It tastes like blood, too."

"What are you, a vampire?"

"No, it just tastes like the smell of blood. Would you like some? On the website and on the map, it says that some people believe the water has special healing powers, but Mammy said the pilgrims who used to come here probably just had anaemia, so all the iron in the water made them better. But they didn't know that, because medicine wasn't very good then. So they just decided the water was magical."

"I think I'll pass, thanks. That smells…"

"Like blood? It's not so bad. I don't mind blood. Sophia says I'm freaky, she's in my class at school. I think that's good, though, because people who don't like blood don't make very good doctors. Mammy?"

"Well, if there's even the slightest chance it'll cure me of all my ailments." She drinks, shudders, passes it back. "That is revolting."

"It's not that bad," Chakra insists. "It's like Auntie Ruby's smoothies, you just have to give them a chance. Apart from her green ones. Her green ones are horrible."

"So does… Auntie Ruby… does Auntie Ruby still live with you two?" Ethan asks.

"No. She used to live with us when I was little, but then she moved out when I was four. And then we moved to Newcastle." She pauses, frowns. "How do you know that?"

"Well, because Auntie Ruby lived with Ali- with your mum before I… well, when we worked together. Before you were born." Ethan stammers, pales, can't quite meet Alicia's eyes.

"What kind of doctor were you?"

"Oh…" Ethan visibly breathes a sigh of relief. "I was an ED doctor too, like Mummy; you know what ED means, right? Of course you do."

"But you aren't anymore?"

"Well… it's been rather a long time since I last practiced, yes. I mean, I still know the theory. Whether I'd still be able to actually treat patients is another issue altogether. Probably not, I suspect."

"So you didn't stop being a doctor because you couldn't do it anymore."

"You don't miss anything, do you? No. No, I… oh, how to put this…" Ethan pauses, contemplates, and just for a moment, Alicia's heart stops.

She's never known why. All these years and she's never known why, not exactly. She has a pretty decent idea, of course, can speculate, but it isn't the same.

All these years, she's been waiting for an answer, an answer to a question she feared she might never receive, and now the moment might just have finally come, she's irrationally, inexplicably afraid.

"There was an… an accident," Ethan explains shakily. "At work. I… well, it was right when I first started to become ill, I was… I was starting to lose my balance, a bit, it was starting to affect my coordination. And… you know that Huntington's isn't just a physical disease, don't you, you know it can affect your head, as well? How you think, your emotions, does that make sense? It can… some people… it can make them feel very angry. I was very stressed, at the time, I was worried that was happening to me."

"But it wasn't?" Chakra asks, eyes wide.

"No, it wasn't. I mean, it still could, but my consultant is pretty certain it would have happened already if it was going to. But anyway, so there was an accident, at work, my fault, really, it was completely my fault."

 _No it wasn't_ , Alicia wants to tell him. _It wasn't your fault, it wasn't_ …

She wants to tell him desperately, but she knows he won't accept it.

And if nothing else, it would lead to awkward questions, awkward questions from Chakra that they'd have to answer, and she doesn't need to know.

She doesn't need to know, and the last thing Ethan needs is to have to tell her.

It's clear enough that day, that horrible accident, has been haunting him all this time.

"Anyway, I… I had a patient, a patient I should have treated, in that accident, and I panicked. I thought I was going to be more of a danger to… to them, than I was going to be any good, I was scared… and I ran. You know that doctors have an obligation to treat anyone who needs their help, don't you?"

"Mammy had to treat a woman who had a heart attack when we were flying to Alaska."

"Exactly. So after that… it just messed with my head a bit, I guess. I failed. I never worked again after that. Not as a doctor, anyway."

Chakra is silent for a moment, blinks. "Was the patient alright?"

Ethan squeezes Alicia's hand tightly, protective. "Yes. Thank goodness. Well, patients, really. No thanks to me, but yes."

"And it was at work?" Chakra asks. "At Holby, where Mammy works?"

"…Yes."

"So there were lots of other doctors to help," Chakra concludes. "There must have been. Even if you didn't look after your patients, I don't think it matters. Not really. You knew they were safe with the other doctors. You didn't fail. You just let somebody else help instead."

There's a long, painful silence, and Alicia almost expects Ethan to argue back, to disagree with her, list all the reasons he messed up that day, all the reasons he shouldn't be forgiven, doesn't deserve her attempts to make him feel better.

And then he smiles, just a little, the faintest trace, but it's enough.

"Yes," Ethan says finally. "Yes, I suppose that's true. Shall we go and see this well where everybody sits and meditates, then?"

It's peaceful, through in the next part of the garden. They have it mostly to themselves, a couple sat around the edge of the well cover when they first pass through that Alicia decides are the very epitome of descendants of King Arthur pilgrims, Glastonbury natives, makes a mental note to keep Chakra as far away from them as possible until they're safely out of the Chalice Well Gardens (the last thing she needs is Chakra discovering tarot cards or something else hippy-esque). Already she's copying, sits in lotus, turns up her palms, closes her eyes, utterly oblivious to her parents beside her, and Ethan leans in first, initiates, catches Alicia's lips against his and it's as though she's been transported back in time, as though she's back in those brief few months in which save for her total, paralysing fear of sex, her scars, the last remnants of that awful night with Eddie, everything was so completely perfect.

"I love you," Ethan whispers, voice low enough that only she can hear. "I love you so much. I should never have left."

Birds chatter faintly in the trees above them, beautifully serene.

"I love you, too," Alicia whispers back, heartfelt. "So stay."

They drag Chakra away from the well eventually, wander through the gardens, pace ever slowing. It's mid-March, now, still cold, still a little dark, overcast, bare, but the beginnings of green shoots beginning to sprout, new life, a new start.

It feels so symbolic, so poignant, and Alicia knows exactly what she wants to tell him.

She just can't quite work out how to execute it without scaring him away again.

"Are we finished then?" she asks her daughter. "We've got lunch, haven't we, but I don't think this place would be too happy with us if we brought food in, we'll go and find one of the benches outside if we're done. What have you done to your hands?" she exclaims, all of a sudden horribly aware of the angry patches of red across the back of her daughter's knuckles, can't for the life of her work out how she didn't see it before. "Chakra?"

Chakra shrugs, looks down, a strange, disconnected, lost look in her eyes Alicia can't quite describe, not properly.

She, stops, crouches down, turns her daughter's hands over in her own gently, carefully, switches into doctor mode without even thinking. "Have you been scratching them?" She takes in the faint traces of blood under her daughter's fingernails. "It's just eczema, sweetheart, you're going to make it worse if you scratch it. That's not a good idea. We should probably do something with your finger nails, too, shouldn't we, those are like claws."

Chakra just stares at her, silent, awkward, almost, as though torn between resenting her mother for making such a fuss and desperately wanting a hug and too shy to ask in front of Ethan, anxious, worried that she's going to have to explain.

"We'll get you some steroid cream, when we get home. I'll get Auntie Elle to write you a prescription, we'll boycott the GP. That'll get rid of it. But in the meantime, you have to try not to scratch it, okay, that's not going to help. We don't get on with our GP," she explains hurriedly to Ethan. "Thinks she knows everything."

There's something in her daughter's eyes, in that moment. There's just a hint of something Alicia's been desperately hoping she won't see, something she's dismissed, ruled out over and over again, told herself that the teenagers she gets in paeds, even the pre-teens, are a world away from her own little girl who isn't even eight yet, far, far too young for any of it.

Not this. She can cope with just about anything else, she just desperately doesn't want it to be this.

There's nothing she can say. All Alicia wants is to pull her into her arms and protect her from it all, keep her safe, undo all the damage she's done to her because she's seven, because if this is what she's so suddenly afraid it might be, it's her fault. As her mother, it has to be. She wants to fix her as easily as she could fix a broken ankle, minor abrasions, anything simple, make it all go away, and yet she can't because it isn't that simple, because she's far too small, can't even fully understand herself yet, and that makes it all the more terrifying.

She can't do that. Not in front of Ethan, not even were it just the two of them, because poor Chakra couldn't ever understand.

Not yet, at least.

Perhaps she will, before it's over.

Alicia doesn't want to think about that.

And so she pulls herself together, holds her daughter's hand a little tighter than usual as they cross the road, squeezes, makes a mental note to cut her nails right down before she puts her to bed this evening, just in case.

Perhaps she's wrong, perhaps this isn't what she thinks it is, but Alicia doesn't want to take that chance.

She leaves Ethan and Chakra on the bench at the bottom of the tor, ventures back to the car alone, retrieves the food.

It's with apprehension that she hands Chakra a sandwich, holds her breath, tries to maintain conversation with Ethan over something or other but she's horribly distracted, knows she shouldn't be watching her daughter intently but she just can't help it, too far gone with worry and nausea and fear for all of that.

Chakra chatters happily, eats the whole thing, no resistance.

And Alicia is even more confused than ever.


	23. Chapter 23

**I am so, so sorry for the length of this thing! I did think about splitting it, but I think you need the whole thing in one go.**

 **This chapter is for a number of people.**

 **For all the mothers, fathers, and other guardians out there, for everything they do for us, for all the times we've thrown them into bizarre worlds they don't understand through our interests, for all the worry we cause them.**

 **For the real Theresa, who cried with me on the stairs and laughed when all the alarms went off, and her colleague whose name I can't remember, who sat with me and looked at pictures and listened to stories. I think of them often. To keep this spoiler-free, real-life Theresa and I met in the same circumstances to the ones explored in this chapter. I've drawn on my own experiences in writing this, which I'm assuming are true to standard procedure. I'm sorry if they are not!**

 **For all the Eastern European women and ballet teachers in my life. You are all superstars.**

 **For my coach, who subjected us all to the press up trick. And yes, no one ever did it again!**

 **For my wonderful friend, who has never watched Casualty, but now ships Alicia and Ethan because she's heard me agonise over this story too many times. Oops.**

 **For Beth, for providing the inspiration for a scene of this chapter. You'll know it when you see it.**

 **For Katie, guest and 20BlueRoses for your lovely reviews of the last chapter. Your feedback means the world.**

 **And finally, for those of you who aren't familiar with how fan fiction works, I get story stats which show me all the countries people reading are from. So to my Russian reader- my Russian is nowhere near as good as it should be, please feel free to correct my mistakes!**

 **Chapter 23**

"Do I _have_ to sleep at Nana's tonight?"

Alicia sighs, waits at the traffic lights. "Yes, you do, you know I'm working tonight. What's wrong with sleeping at Nana's?"

'Nothing, but I won't see you," Chakra protests.

It's getting dark, but still Alicia can see the hurt in her daughter's features.

"Can't Nana sleep at our house?"

"Well, we're going to Nana's for dinner, aren't we, that wouldn't really make much sense. And you will see me. We're going to have dinner at Nana's, then I'm going to go to work, you're going to sleep at hers and then we have our appointment with Helen tomorrow morning, remember? Nana's going to bring you in to the ED, we'll go and see Helen and then I'm going to go home and sleep, you're going to have a great time with Nana and I'll come and get you later, okay?"

"Can I just come home with you, after we see Helen? Please?"

"Hey, I've driven us back from Glastonbury today and I'm working a twelve-hour night shift, I'm going to need some sleep. Will you let me have five hours? I'll come and get you from gym." The lights change, and she releases the hand break, turns down into her mam's road.

"Mammy?"

"Four hours? We can compromise on four, okay, I can come and get you from Nana's and take you to gym. That's my final offer, though." She's exhausted already, cursing herself, knew she should have driven home yesterday rather than fitting it in in the hours before a night shift, childcare-less, no option but to stay up for twenty-four hours and then some.

She knew they should have left yesterday, but she just wanted a few more hours with Ethan.

"Mammy, I don't want to go to gym."

Alicia parks outside her mam's house, turns off the engine, frowns. "Why don't you want to go to gym. You love gym. Don't do that, sweetheart." She reaches for her daughter's hands, grips gently, not convinced she's doing the right thing but doesn't know what else she can do, starting to accept that perhaps it isn't eczema after all, as much as she desperately wants to continue pretending otherwise. "Can you tell me why, Chak? Why don't you want to go?"

Chakra looks down, tenses, and for a moment, Alicia thinks she's going to shut her out completely.

"Miss Yekaterina showed us our costumes last week, before we went to see Ethan."

"Right, okay. This is your one for the show in the summer, right? Please tell me I don't have to glue sparkly stuff onto another competition leotard, I'm still recovering from the last one." She knew she should have tried harder to persuade Chakra to take up something sensible, like street dancing or swimming or karate, or something, anything, without excessive parental glitter-fying requirements.

"You didn't do my competition leotard, you did one corner and then you gave it to Auntie Ruby to finish."

"I did, didn't I? Auntie Ruby's better at obsessive repetitive stuff than I am. Anyway, so this is your show costume?"

Chakra nods.

"Okay. I still don't quite understand why you don't want to go to gym, sweetheart."

"She said I have to try mine on this week, because I missed practice last week."

"Okay. Are they really that ugly? Everything I've seen you lot be given for gym competitions could rival most people's wedding dresses in the sparkle department. I didn't think Russian gym coaches did ugly."

"She's from Belarus, not Russia. And no, they're really pretty." Chakra grimaces, her expression a mixture of fear and panic and displeasure. "But… they're like bikinis. But with skirts."

Slowly, it clicks. "Oh, okay. Well, I'm sure we can come up with something. I'll have you know I am _brilliant_ at covering up cuts and bruises with makeup, I'm sure I can manage… no? No, alright. I'll speak to Miss Yekaterina, okay, I'll take you tomorrow and I'll speak to her. She'll understand, we'll work something out. That's really not worth worrying about, Chakra, and it's definitely not worth skipping gym over. We'll sort it. Alright? I'll sort it. That's my job, I'm your mam. You don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with. Does that help?"

Chakra nods.

"There you are, then, we've got a plan. So I'll come and get you tomorrow before gym, okay? I promise. Shall we go and see Nana, then?"

Chakra clings onto her hand as they walk up the front drive, stubborn, still a little unimpressed, Alicia suspects.

It's the thought of their meeting with Helen tomorrow that's bothering her. It must be. She was a little reluctant to leave Ethan, yes, both of them were, but not enough to explain this. It's different for Chakra, Alicia supposes; Ethan living in Glastonbury, isolated, separate, is all she's ever known, and even now he's a part of her life, there's no reason she would feel his absence here, in Holby.

This has to be because of their meeting with Helen. She's never normally this clingy, even over the last few months, not quite this bad. Perhaps it wasn't the best idea to be working tonight, Alicia considers, but then what could she do? It's not as though she can avoid night shifts indefinitely, can't keep begging half the ED to swap with her, use up all her favours now and leave herself with none for an actual emergency.

"Right, are you going to ring the doorbell, Chak?" Alicia tries. She needs to try and snap her out of this somehow, distract her, act like everything's normal, she can't leave her with her mam while she's like this. She lifts her up, positions her to press down on the doorbell, moves to put her down again and Chakra has wrapped her arms firmly around her neck, legs around her waist, refuses to let go.

Struggle through tomorrow morning, Alicia tells herself desperately. Struggle through tomorrow morning and take it from there.

"Hi, darling. It's so good to see you." Her mam swings open the front door, moves to embrace her, hesitates for a moment, seems to take in the look of despair on Alicia's face and proceeds, Chakra sandwiched between them. "And how's my beautiful granddaughter? Have you had a good week with Da- with Ethan?"

Chakra nods faintly, rests her head against Alicia's shoulder, disengaged.

"Do I not get a hug, Chakra?" Jackie tries. "I've been looking forward to seeing you and your mam all week, darling."

"When are you leaving?" Chakra asks anxiously. "Mammy?"

"Not for a couple of hours. I can even do bedtime if you don't mind going up really early. And then I'll see you tomorrow morning. I'm coming right back, Chakka, I'll see you tomorrow morning. And then tomorrow afternoon, properly."

Slowly, Chakra lets go, allows herself to be lowered down, moves to greet Jackie with a hug, and Alicia sighs with relief.

"I liked your postcard," Jackie tells her. "I've put it on the fridge, with all your drawings. You have beautiful handwriting now, don't you?"

"Thank you." She smiles, a little shy, enough to worry Alicia, but at least she's managed to peel her daughter away from her.

"Do you want to go and take your bag upstairs, Chakra, love? Dinner's almost ready." Her mam waits until Chakra has disappeared up the stairs, places a hand on her shoulder, guides her through to the kitchen. "Not a good day, then?"

Alicia sighs wearily, grimaces. "Oh, don't."

"That bad? Glass of red?"

She shakes her head. "I would kill for one, but I can't. Work."

"Of course. Sorry." She hesitates, awkward, concerned. "I don't think I've ever seen her this…"

"Clingy?" Alicia finishes for her. "I know. She's been on and off all week, keeps waking up in the middle of the night worrying about going back to school. She's been better, the last few days…" she sighs. "I'm going to come and get her early tomorrow, I'll take her to gym."

"You're going to be shattered, Alicia…"

"I'll be fine. She's having a freak out about gym now, apparently she's seen her show costume, it's some kind of two piece thing. She's not impressed. I mean, come on, it's not really fair, is it, when you sign your child up for gym classes you kind of expect it's going to be all, you know, leotards and stuff. I'm going to have a word with her coach when I drop her off, see if she can put something underneath it, or something. I don't think now's the time to try and work through that one with her."

"No," her mam agrees. "No, I don't think it is, either. But she's… she's been eating?"

"Erratically, yes. Better than nothing, I suppose, I just… there's some kind of pattern," Alicia tells her desperately. "There has to be. I was starting to think it was an anxiety thing, but then she went and proved me wrong. Well, maybe it is an anxiety thing, I don't know, but it's not consistent. I don't know if even she knows what sets her off, I don't know…" she shakes her head. "Sorry. Sorry, we've been through this so many times, I know…"

"You're doing the best you can for her, darling." Her mam squeezes her shoulder, brushes past to open the oven door. "That's all you can do. Anyone can see you're her whole world, she feels safe with you…"

"Yep, so safe I can hardly prise her off me tonight. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad we're close, thank god she does feel safe with me when she's like this…"

"But it's not easy," Jackie finishes for her. "I know."

"If she's like this tomorrow child psych are going to be all over me, her school have already told them I baby her… I mean, maybe I do, I just…"

Her mam frowns. "I don't think you do. I mean, she's pretty grown up in a lot of ways, isn't she? She's practically a mini adult sometimes, some of the things she comes out with. She's still so little, she's not even eight yet. What does it matter if she's not in a hurry to grow up emotionally? Kids grow up far too quickly nowadays. Chakra, love, do you want to come and tell me how much of this you want?" she calls.

Chakra appears in the doorway, fluffy elephant clutched to her chest. "What is it?"

"It's nut roast, I've made you this before, remember? You liked it then. So will you eat this much? You will? Right, that one's yours. I think Mammy needs to give Elephant a wash for you, doesn't she? She's looking a bit grubby. Maybe we can put her in the washing machine tomorrow."

Chakra blinks, hovers at the kitchen table, hesitant.

"Do you want to come and do your veg, then? Look, you can stand on the chair, I'll give you that. Good girl. And we'll have to decide what we're doing tomorrow, won't we, when Mammy's at work."

"What time are we seeing Helen?" Chakra asks, glances to Alicia anxiously.

"At nine. So then you've got the whole rest of the day, it won't take long."

"Are you working on Tuesday?"

"Yep, but just during the day. So you might be going to school, or you might be spending the day with Nana again, okay? We'll see. But I'll take you, if you're going to school, I'll drop you off. Come and sit down, then." She places the plate in front of her daughter at the kitchen table, meets her mam's eyes, pleads for assistance.

"So what did you do with Ethan this week, Chakra?" Jackie asks casually.

"We went to a place called Chalice Well, it's a spiritual garden, and the well water is supposed to have healing powers, and pagan people in Glastonbury think it's like… tran… transunstansion… transom…"

"What on earth are you trying to say?"

"They think the water is King Arthur's blood, because it's red, and it smells like blood, because it has iron in it."

"Nope, still don't know what you're trying to say. Where did you hear that word?"

"At mass, in Glastonbury. In the church in the middle of nowhere. They said the communion stuff was trans… transumstationed into Jesus's blood."

"Transubstantiation?"

"Yes. I think so. Is that what it means?" She practices slowly. "Tran-sub-stan…"

"Transubstantiation. Must have been that, anyway. Shows how much I was paying attention. So have you just tried to use the word 'transubstantiation' in the same sentence as 'communion stuff?'"

"Why?"

"You're so my daughter. And we went to Glastonbury Abbey, didn't we? Remind me, is that where we got your postcards from?"

"Yes, and we saw King Arthur and Guinevere's grave. Except it isn't really their grave. Ethan likes history, too, but he doesn't know very much about King Arthur. And then Ethan wasn't very well for a few days, so we stayed in the cottage with him."

"Ethan came and stayed with you?" Jackie raises her eyebrows, and Alicia cringes.

She's deliberately avoided telling her mam that part until now, knowing how she'll react.

"He really is sorry, Mam." Alicia glances across to her daughter, rearranging carrots with her fork, absolutely no idea she's put her foot in it well and truly. "He… he didn't leave because he wanted us to be over."

"Oh, I know that. I saw the way he used to look at you, I'm not questioning that. But he left once, Alicia, he had it in him to walk out on you once. You've known each other for days, really, this time around, eight years is an awfully long time. Who's to say he won't get cold feet again this time? You don't know, he could…"

"He was ill," Alicia protests. "He'd just been given a life-changing diagnosis…"

"But not one he wasn't expecting."

"I don't think knowing Huntington's is going to set in eventually exactly softens the blow when it actually happens…"

"I'm sure it doesn't," her mam agrees. "But that isn't really the point, is it? It wasn't just about him, Alicia. You were pregnant. I don't care how badly his diagnosis messed with his head, it takes a special kind of selfish to walk out on your pregnant girlfriend…"

"He wasn't doing it for selfish reasons, Mam," Alicia says quietly. "He really wasn't. I think he genuinely thought he was doing the right thing…"

"Maybe he did. But he still hurt you. You were in pieces when he left, you know you were. I just don't want him to change his mind and break your heart again, it's still so early to be…" she sighs, shakes her head, and Alicia wonders if she too is suddenly conscious of Chakra watching them both intently, hyper-alert, dinner well and truly abandoned. "Anyway. Chakra, are you going to eat some more of that, darling?"

Chakra pouts, unimpressed, picks up her fork with considerable reluctance.

"So Chakra, can you come and stand here for me? Good girl. And then if you just come here, stand on the scales? It's alright. Okay, there you go. You're done. Do you want to go and sit outside with Nana for a bit, while I finish talking to Mummy?"

"It's alright, sweetheart," Alicia reassures her. "I'll be out in a minute."

Her daughter's psychiatrist closes the door carefully behind her, moves back to her desk. "Her growth's levelled off since September…"

"Not drastically…"

"No, but her weight's just off the curve, now. Her development over the last six months, along with the symptoms you've noticed, her psych assessment… she fits all the criteria for anorexia."

"She's _seven_."

"You'll know as well as I do, we're observing eating disorders in younger and younger children. Particularly girls. It's become increasingly common over the last few years…"

"I know that. Believe me, I know that. But she's… she's not consistent. Some days you'd never know there was anything wrong at all, she's fine, she's happy, she eats, or sometimes she'll even have a total anxious meltdown and then she'll eat totally normally."

Helen raises her eyebrows.

"It's anxiety triggered. I'm sure it is. She's not starving herself because she thinks she's…" Alicia trails off, conflicted.

She wants to believe that's the truth. She really does; and she did, until that brief slip last week, prior to Ethan's unfortunately timed interruption.

Now, in all honesty, she's not so sure.

"I don't know," she finishes at last. "I don't know. I just… it's more complicated than anorexia. It has to be. It's not as simple as that…"

"Parents often find it difficult to accept an eating disorder diagnosis. Particularly at Chakra's age…"

"I'm not in denial!" Alicia snaps. "She's got problems, I completely accept that. She's got serious psychological problems, I just don't think… look, she was fine. Six months ago, she was fine, she was happy, she was healthy, we moved back to Holby and it's just all been downhill from there. It's not as simple as an eating disorder…"

"Alicia. You have to accept, with your medical history…"

"Oh, don't go there," Alicia warns. "That's got nothing to do with it. I don't think there's a woman on the planet who didn't have a troubled relationship with food and body image at some point in their teenage years, Chakra is _seven,_ that's only on my medical record at all because my mam…"

"That isn't what I meant," Helen says gently. "I'm confident with my diagnosis, it's not up for discussion. It's more of a question of where we go from here. I'd like to refer her for counselling…"

"Eating disorder specific? I am telling you, there is no way all her anxiety is over food, that's not what I'm seeing at home. Look, like I said when she was in here, she's slept awfully this last week, every time I manage to get her to open up she tells me she doesn't want to go back to school. She's so much better when she hasn't got the thought of school hanging over her, she eats, she sleeps, she's not being sick, she's basically a different child, do you really think that's a coincidence?"

"Like I said to you both before, I see no reason why she shouldn't be in school. I've spoken at length with her teacher, she doesn't think Chakra's behaviour is linked to anything specific at school other than separation anxiety…"

"But that's exactly what worries me. She was never bothered about me leaving her before all this started, I've worked shifts half her life, she's always been completely fine with me leaving her for a overnight, never mind a few hours. She had a bit of a meltdown when I left her at my mam's last night but that's the only time she's ever kicked up a fuss and it hasn't been at the school gates, and she was on edge all day yesterday. It's because she's so panicked about going back to school, I know it is."

"Like I said, there's nothing to warrant keeping her out of school. She's ill, yes, but it could be a lot worse; you'll know that, if you work in paeds. She doesn't need sheltering, she needs normality. Lots of children go through separation anxiety. It's normal. It's really just a question of persevering with her, when it comes to school. Like I said, I'm going to refer her for outpatient treatment. We often recommend family therapy for childhood anorexia, though I think Chakra would also benefit from CBT…"

"Yes, I think she would," Alicia agrees. "I think she'd benefit from art therapy, because I think she's demonstrated pretty clearly she either doesn't want to or she _can't_ articulate whatever's making her so distressed, and why should she, she's seven. And _then_ I think she'd benefit from CBT. Not before."

"You're not her doctor, Alicia. You're her mother."

"And therefore, my objectivity is non-existent. I know. I just think…"

"Alicia. I've treated a lot of children Chakra's age." It's clear from the psychiatrist's tone that this is final, no longer up for discussion. "I'd like to send her for a bone density scan. You know the risks there. Ideally, I'd like you to discuss her diet with a nutritionist…"

Alicia rolls her eyes.

"She's anaemic, she's vitamin D deficient, her electrolytes are…"

"Yes, because she's starving herself on and off. How can it have anything to do with what she's eating if I can't even get her to eat half the time? There's nothing wrong with her diet. She was perfectly healthy until she went downhill psychologically, that's hardly a coincidence, is it? I know I can opt out…"

The psychiatrist practically glares. To be fair, Alicia considers, she does know how it feels, has had enough arguments with the medic parents of her own patients in Paeds over the years to empathise, but this is different.

They've all got it so, so wrong.

She needs them to understand that.

They're wasting time trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist, and in the meantime her baby girl is crying out louder and louder for help and the professionals aren't listening.

"Yes, you can opt out. I strongly advise you don't, but if you're sure that's what you want, you can opt out. But it's not as simple as healthy diet just now, Chakra's significantly underweight, she needs…"

"Yes, I've read the latest GOSH guidelines on refeeding, thank you. I saw plenty of similar cases when I worked in Paeds at GNCH, I think we'll be fine with that. I know how to feed her, I'm not totally incompetent. I've probably read enough research papers on nutrition to qualify for another degree." Alicia closes her eyes, defeated. "But I can't fix whatever's going on inside her head."

"If you're sure. I'm going to recommend CBT and family therapy, I'll be in touch in the next week to arrange a first appointment. And it's just the two of you at home?"

Alicia nods, silent.

There's no need to complicate matters and mention Ethan, not at this stage.

Not yet.

"Alright. We'll aim to get her an appointment within the next couple of weeks. I'm going to let her school know to expect her back in as of tomorrow." Her tone is firm, uncompromising. "There's no reason she shouldn't be in school."

"If I can't get her in through the school gates, I don't think it's as simple as…"

"She needs to get used to you leaving her. The best way to tackle separation anxiety is to be consistent, keep it to a strict routine. Once she's back into the habit of…"

Alicia closes her eyes, zones out.

This isn't happening.

She doesn't want to accept that this is happening, not now, not ever.

"Mammy?" Chakra's eyes plead with her as she steps back out into the waiting area.

Alicia shoots her mam a look of despair, reaches for Chakra's hand, leads her along the corridor back to the lift.

This is going to go so, so badly.

"So we're going to give school a try tomorrow, okay?" Her tone is light-hearted, horribly forced and Chakra is probably old enough now that she can see right through her. But she has to try to be positive, she tells herself. Adding her own emotions into the mix isn't going to help. "And we'll see, after that. Let's just try tomorrow. I'll take you in, I'll talk to Mrs Beauchamp, and then Nana will come and get you at three."

"Mammy…" Chakra protests.

Perhaps it might be mistaken for a whine, Alicia considers, reluctant, trying to win.

She knows better.

The panic in her daughter's voice is evident, even from that one word.

Why won't anyone listen?

"Hey, it's going to be fine, sweetheart. You're going to be fine, you'll see. It's just for a few hours, okay? Six hours. That's all."

"Are you working?"

"Yes, but I'll take you in tomorrow morning, I promise." Alicia makes a mental note to plead with Mrs Beauchamp before she leaves. "I can't every morning, but I will tomorrow."

"But I won't see you after work?" Chakra clings to Alicia's arm as they walk into the ED. If she sees Bea waving at her from the admin station, she doesn't acknowledge her, panicked, tunnel vision; that, if nothing else, Alicia realises with a sigh, has to be a bad sign. "Mammy?"

"Well, if you talk very nicely to Nana, perhaps she might bring you in here after school, Chak," she tries, gives in. "I'm working until six, but I can come and see you just for a minute, if that makes you feel better."

"Nana?" Chakra frowns up at Jackie, unconvinced.

"We can come and see Mammy quickly, if you want to," she offers. "Of course we can."

"And we'll see how it goes, okay?" Alicia tells her gently. She crouches down, smoothens her hair, fusses, doesn't want to leave her. "I'm not going to make you go back on Wednesday if it's awful, I promise. But we'll worry about that later. I just need you to give it a try tomorrow. Can you do that for me?"

Reluctantly, Chakra nods.

"Good girl. Okay." She hugs her tightly, so many things she wants to say in that moment and no idea how to express any of it in a way her daughter might understand. "I'll come and get you from Nana's later and I'll take you to gym, and we'll talk to Miss Yekaterina and we'll get your costume sorted. Alright? You don't need to worry about anything, I've got it all under control. I love you. I'm coming right back."

She drags herself back out of bed at half two running on far too little sleep, spends a moment in front of the mirror trying and failing to make herself look vaguely presentable, collects Chakra from her mam's, ferries her back across Holby, parks, holds her hand.

Usually, Alicia prefers the drop right in front of the doors and leave as quickly as possible approach when it comes to the gym run, completely out of her depth.

Yekaterina Kuznetsova is an ancient, mildly terrifying, ex-Soviet gymnast, at least seventy, Alicia suspects, probably some kind of political exile. She never quite got on with history at school.

"Right, where do I wait?" Alicia asks. Somehow, crossing the threshold into Yekaterina's realm always makes her feel as though she's a child again, being looked down upon.

She's still not entirely sure why Chakra likes coming here so much.

Chakra shrugs. "Here, I guess. Miss Yekaterina's talking to Vasilisa's mam." She points. "I have to put my bag away and warm up for stretching, or everyone else has to do press ups."

"Contorting yourself into unnatural positions, you mean? Okay. Why everyone else? Why not you?"

"Because Miss Yekaterina says it works better. Whoever doesn't warm up in time has to sit and watch while everyone else does press ups. She says if she does it that way because then nobody is ever late again."

"Oh, that's evil, that. Please remind me never to introduce her to Mrs Beauchamp. You go and do whatever you need to do then, I'll wait here."

"Dr Munroe," Chakra's terrifying gym coach greets her, expression serious. "How are you?"

"Oh, Alicia. And I'm fine, thank you, I just wanted to have a quick word with you about Chakra." She pauses for a moment, irrationally flustered, always feels as though she's being judged, somehow, every time she's forced to have a proper, face-to-face conversation with Miss Yekaterina. "Chakra's… Chakra's a bit upset, actually," she says carefully. Six months in, and she's still not entirely convinced the woman's grasp of English extends far beyond the basics. "She's… she seems to think you want her to try on her show costume today…"

"And there is problem?" Miss Yekaterina raises her eyebrows.

"Oh… well, yes…" Alicia stammers. "She's… it's just… she's got a few scars, on her stomach, she had an operation when she was a baby. She's fine now, apart from… well, you know about that. But they're very visible scars. She's quite self-conscious about them, at the moment, I don't know if…"

"It is easily solved. Chakra! Chakra, pridish!" she calls.

Chakra skips over obediently.

"Come." Miss Yekaterina turns, wanders off towards the store cupboard.

Alicia follows behind her, not entirely sure if she's supposed to be coming too or not, waits with equal obedience as Miss Yekaterina searches through organised chaos.

"So this is hers." She places something positively bright pink and sparkly into Chakra's hands, continues rummaging. "And this is leotard." She holds it up for Alicia to approve, flesh-coloured, subtle. "Ballerinas wear under costume. Chakra, ti idesh i nadevaesh eto na. Bistro, bistro." She pauses for a moment, contemplates. I ti prinocish cvoi baletniye tufli," she adds. "Seychas."

Alicia stares after her, bewildered. "Did she seriously understand that?"

"Da, Mama," Chakra replies happily, skips off in the direction of the toilets.

Miss Yekaterina simply frowns at her, as though she feels Alicia is questioning her capabilities. "It is very easy to learn Russian as child. To be rhythmic gymnast, one must speak Russian. Take off your shoes," she says suddenly.

It's the kind of command Alicia would never go along with under normal circumstances, but Chakra's gym coach is so undeniably Mrs-Beauchamp-like that she doesn't dare argue.

"Point. Like this." She demonstrates. "You have beautiful feet. I thought so, Chakra has beautiful feet also. I teach adult ballet class, for beginner."

"Oh…" Alicia shuffles awkwardly. "That's… very kind of you… but I work shifts…"

"Ni problema. You come when you can. We meet Thursdays, after Chakra's practice."

"Ummm… thank you… but I haven't danced since uni, and that was street dance type stuff, and I was always terrible anyway…"

Miss Yekaterina watches her steadily for a moment, looks her up and down. "I will make you good," she says at last.

Alicia resists the temptation to make a run for it.

She's saved by Chakra as she reappears in the doorway, now changed into her costume, leotard underneath, visibly relaxed.

"Chakra, pridish. Relevé. I arabesque. Derzhish. You see how her right foot turned in?"

"Yes," Alicia lies.

"She needs to practice this," Miss Yekaterina tells her, as though expecting Alicia to understand what on earth she means. "She has good turnout, but she cannot hold it. You can relax," she says to Chakra. "Prekrasnyy. You are happy?"

Chakra nods.

"Good. But we must ask your mother. And you are happy?" She turns to Alicia.

"Oh, I think that's perfect," Alicia says quickly. "As long as Chakra's happy with that, I am."

"Khorosho. So, you wear like this, for show. If others ask why, you tell them because I say so. Go and change, you bring me this back, then you stretch. I take these." She reaches for Chakra's ballet shoes, turns to Alicia.

"It is possible to buy ballet shoe with elastic sewn in for you, for Chakra's size. Like rhythmic shoe," Miss Yekaterina tells her, turns one of Chakra's ballet shoes inside out to reveal messy stitching, already unravelling. "In your case, perhaps it is best." She pauses, almost as though she's aware she's pushing her luck. "It is possible to buy like this in your size, also."

She doesn't even bother trying to take Chakra up to her own bed, that night.

She'd be fighting a losing battle if she even tried, Alicia knows that. She's barely been able to get Chakra into her own bed for the whole night at the best of times over the last week, there's no point trying tonight, of all nights.

And so she takes Chakra into her own room with her that night, curls up with her at the stupidly early hour of seven thirty, turns out the lights, because god knows she's exhausted.

Chakra snuggles into her side, wriggles, not so unlike when she used to fall asleep in her arms, Alicia considers, just a tiny baby, painfully clingy according to Robyn and Elle but she had been so relieved to have her out of NICU in one piece that no part of her had minded.

That all seems like such a long time ago, now.

It's only when Chakra's breathing starts to level out, so clearly passed into the realms of sleep, that Alicia allows herself to relax.

Her phone screen glows gently, already switched onto silent, and Alicia reaches for it carefully, one-handed, the other steadying Chakra's small body against hers, doesn't dare risk waking her.

 _Ethan: Sorry I haven't texted before, know you said you were working the night shift when you got back, thought you'd probably be sleeping. Hope work was ok. How's Chakra? I miss you X_

She smiles, despite everything.

 _I wish. I got a couple of hours, C had a hospital appointment today. She's fine, just a routine check-up. Work fine, C's scary Belarusian gym coach trying to recruit me for adult ballet. Might have to sign up for night shift EVERY Thurs. Please tell me you got some actual fresh air today? Miss you too X_

She's preparing him slowly, Alicia tells herself.

It won't be such a shock if she prepares him slowly.

She's afraid; that's the truth. She knows she needs to tell him, knows it isn't fair to keep him in the dark if she's serious about this, serious about trying again, allowing him to be Chakra's father, properly.

But those old fears have come to the surface again, and she's scared, just as she was all those years ago, that day she told him, those awful weeks that followed before he left.

Words from the medical journals she pored over during those early days in which she should have been studying for the next stage of her registrar exams flood through her mind all over again.

The progression of Huntington's Disease can be exacerbated by stress.

She can't do that to him, not again.

She'll never know if her landing an unplanned pregnancy on him caused that awful, rapid deterioration in those first weeks, and so there's no point blaming herself, Alicia does know that rationally.

But it makes perfect sense. It explains why Ethan's deterioration over the last eight years has been so mild in comparison, makes sense of that anomaly.

It's her fault. It's all down to her, what happened, why he left.

It could be, at least.

Alicia can't risk doing that to him again.

 _Been out today, promise. Only round the garden, can't really get far by myself these days. You were right, it did make me feel better. Chakra's gym coach must be bad if every Thursday night with Mrs B is more appealing. Make sure you get some sleep tonight X_

She's halfway through typing out a reply, teasing him that of course she's right, that she always is, that the second message comes through, and in her mind, Alicia can picture him hesitating, nervous, building up the courage to send it.

 _ILY X_

Alicia smiles.

She awakes to her alarm the next morning, early, the faintest traces of sunlight seeping in through the curtains, spring finally on its way.

She forgets, at first. In those first few moments of consciousness it isn't at the forefront of her mind, and she yawns, stretches sleepily, relaxed, refreshed, and then she remembers.

This morning is going to be a battle. There's no denying that.

"Chakra?" Alicia calls gently, strokes her hair. "Chakra, you going to wake up for me?"

Chakra yawns, mumbles something incoherent, blinks.

"Hey, you awake? We need to get up in a minute, okay? You need to go and feed your rabbits, don't you?"

"You fed them yesterday, right?"

It's amazing, Alicia ponders, the things children can choose to focus upon, out of all things.

"Of course I did. Auntie Bea fed them yesterday morning before she dropped them home, and then I did it before I picked you up from gym. I think they'll be really, really glad to see you this morning, though. Are you going to go and get dressed, then, so you can go out to see them?"

"Mammy, I don't want to go," Chakra pleads, wraps her arms around Alicia's neck, voice laced with distress, on the verge of total meltdown. "Mammy please don't make me go, please, Mammy…"

It's so hard.

It's so, so hard to force her when she's like this, even knowing that she has to.

"I need you to try it for today, sweetheart. Just for today. I know you don't want to, I know, but it won't be as bad as you think, okay? I'm almost positive it won't be. And if it is, you just need to get through until three, I'll come and get you from Nana's as soon as I finish work, you tell me why it was so bad and I promise, I will not make you go back. We'll tell Helen why you aren't going back and that'll be the end of it. But I need you to give it a try today, please. Just today. That's all. You'll be fine…"

"I won't, I'll miss you too much." Her eyes fill with tears, desperate.

"Can I tell you a secret? I miss you too, sweetheart, I miss you every time I have to leave you. But I have to go to work, and you have to go to school. And it makes me appreciate you all the more when I do get to see you again after work. It's just for a few hours, Chak. It's going to be fine. Right, we need to get up, don't we? I'm going to get in the shower, okay, but I thought you could try this." She unlocks her phone, turns the screen.

"What is it?"

"It's a meditation app. Auntie Ruby introduced me to this when I was pregnant with you, it's brilliant, it just helps calm you down. They have special ones for your age, look, shall we go for this one. It's just a couple of minutes, you just have to listen and do what it says. It's like a breathing exercise, like at the end of yoga. Yeah? Okay. You try that, then, I'll be right back."

At this point, Alicia is willing to try just about anything.

"I thought you said you were quitting."

Chakra stands on the patio accusingly, coat plus scarf plus fluffy hat and still shivering.

Alicia drops the cigarette stump quickly, stamps it out, caught red-handed.

She'd left the French doors at the end of the kitchen open and disappeared out to the bottom of the garden while Chakra was brushing her teeth and finding her school shoes, had planned to slip back in unnoticed.

She shouldn't have done it, admittedly, knew deep down she shouldn't have done it, that this morning was so not the morning to be going back on her promise, but she's somehow got to persuade Chakra into school in the next half hour, god knows she needs the stress relief.

"I did, didn't I? Cha…" She begins guiltily, but Chakra is already running down to the end of the garden to join her, defeats the object of coming down here in the first place. "Right, that's it, okay. That's my last one, I promise."

"But you promised last time," Chakra protests. "Mammy…"

Alicia closes her eyes, curses herself. She'd only just calmed her down and she's already thrown it all away, most likely made it all a hundred times harder for herself. "I know, sweetheart, I know, but I really mean it this time, okay? That's it, I've quit." She holds out the box of cigarettes and the lighter Chakra, peace offering. "You can go and put them in the bin. That's it, that's all I've got. Don't look at me like that, Chak, it is, I don't get through enough of them to buy more than that at a time. I promise I'm quitting as of today."

"But you won't though! Promises doesn't mean anything if you keep breaking them!" Chakra argues. "You said you were quitting, you said..."

"Will you just give it a rest, Chakra!" Alicia snaps angrily. "It's one cigarette, okay! One a month, if that, it's hardly chain smoking!"

"But you're a doctor, how can you still…"

"Because being an adult is fucking stressful at the best of times! And sometimes…."

She's suddenly aware that the small figure stood in front of her is her daughter, her seven year old and yet still her baby, her emotionally fragile small human already having a total meltdown at the thought of being sent back into the hell on earth the adults around her insist she must endure and she's her mother, she's supposed to be the person she can always count on to look after her, to keep her safe, and she had one job, all she had to do was get her into school as calm and reassured as possible and she couldn't even manage that..

She never shouts at her. Almost eight years and she's almost never shouted at her, why did she have to pick today, of all days?

Chakra's eyes swim with tears, and she bites her lip, trying so hard to hold herself together, as though determined she's not going to cry, and the horrible irony is it's Alicia who can't stand it.

"Come here," she whispers. "Come here, darling." She picks her up, cradles her close, tries to ignore the nagging acknowledgement at the back of her mind that she's supposed to start getting a little heavy for this sometime around now, yet another sign that she's messed up, that she's doing something horribly, disastrously wrong.

"And sometimes that makes us do stupid things we know we shouldn't really do, because they make us feel better in the short term," she finishes. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm so, so sorry. I shouldn't have shouted at you, I'm sorry…"

"Are you crying? Mammy?"

There's no point lying to her.

"Just a little bit. I know, I know, I'm not the one who should be crying, am I? I didn't mean to upset you, Chakra, I'm so sorry…"

Chakra reaches out, brushes at her tears clumsily, as though trying to mimic her mother's actions.

"You're sweet, aren't you?" She sighs, rocks her gently. "Am I any good at this, Chakra?"

"At what?"

"Am I a bad mother?"

"No." There's a gentle pressure on the back of her head, Chakra playing with her hair. "No, you're the best mother and I love you."

Alicia dissolves into tears again.

Chakra's teacher is waiting for them at the school gates, along with the class teaching assistant and the deputy head.

It's a stupid, completely unhelpful tactic, Alicia reasons. They're supposed to be good with children, for god's sake, they're teachers, how can they not see that this is just going to intimidate her?

She had it all worked out. She jeopardised the first half of her plan for operation get Chakra into school the moment she shouted at her, of course, but the second half was still intact. She just wanted to keep her calm walking her in, ask her what she wanted to do at the weekend, make sure she realised she had something to look forward to, might be able to look past today and realise it's going to come to an end, that maybe it isn't so bad, take her time saying goodbye to her, but there's no way she's going to be allowed to do that now.

"Hi, Chakra," Mrs Davies tries. "I've missed having you in my class."

Chakra looks to Alicia, eyes beg her for help.

"Can I walk her in?" Alicia asks. "I'll leave her outside the classroom…"

"It's best you don't," Chakra's teacher tells her. "If all the parents brought their children into the building, it would be chaos. I'll take you in, Chakra. Do you want to go in before all the other children? Would that be better?"

"Mammy…"

"It's okay. It's okay, Chak, you're going to be fine," Alicia tries to reassure her. "It's just for a few hours. It'll go really quickly. You're going to be absolutely fine, sweetheart. Right, that's your PE kit…"

"Mammy, please…" She's crying again now, comes out of nowhere, breathing already coming in gasps before Alicia can comfort her.

"Chakra, come on." Mrs Davies reaches for her hand, firm, intervenes. "We need to go in now."

They've clearly all lapped up every word of the psychiatrist's so-called advice at Chakra's school, been told to ignore her distress, act normal, treat it as a simple case of school refusal, attention seeking.

"Breathe, sweetheart. Breathe. You're fine, everything's going to be fine. It's just for a few hours." She hugs her one last time, every part of her screaming to take her hand and walk away, take her back home, away from whatever it is that's making her so upset, at the same time knows that she can't. "I'll see you later, okay? And if anyone upsets you Chak, if anything happens, you tell someone, you promise? Good girl. I'm in work all day, but I'll have my phone, if you want to talk to me at lunchtime you can just go and speak to the lady in the office and…"

"It's best you don't," Mrs Davies tells her abruptly. "We don't encourage that. Come on, Chakra.". She takes Chakra's hand, leads her firmly towards the entrance.

Chakra's distraught face looking back over her shoulder almost breaks Alicia's heart.

"You look shattered already," Elle comments, brushes past Alicia and Bea at the admin station. "Late one last night?"

Alicia shakes her head. "No, but it's Chakra's first day back at school today and she's so not ready but hey, no one will listen to me, I'm her mam so apparently I know nothing, I managed to pick this morning of all mornings to lose my patience and scream at her and I've just dropped her at school in floods of tears and probably earned myself the worst mother of the year award, so I think actually I'd rather a late one, when you put it like that."

It's only as she comes to the end of her mini rant that she realises her voice is shaking.

"Oh sweetie, if you knew how many times I've screamed at my three over nothing pre-school run over the years, believe me, you'd know that award is well and truly mine," Elle tells her gently, pulls her into a brief hug. "She's nearly eight, right? If you've managed nearly eight years without losing it and shouting at her when you shouldn't have, you're doing an amazing job."

"I just feel like I'm doing it all wrong…"

"No, you're not. You're not, it just feels like you are when it gets difficult, and that's okay."

"Do you want me to take her tomorrow?" Bea offers. "I'm having her anyway tomorrow, right, if she's not at school? But I can keep her overnight, give you a break?"

If it was anyone else, Alicia would tell them there's no way she'll be able to prise Chakra away from her for a few minutes, let alone overnight. But it's Bea, she considers, and she's almost certain Chakra's refusal to be left with anyone else without a battle won't extend to Auntie Bea.

"Can I let you know?" she asks. "I would love you to, I just don't know what she's going to be like. And I haven't managed to get her into her own bed consistently for about two weeks, just to warn you…"

"So we can call it a sleepover. I don't mind, she's only little, isn't she. Just tell me. It's not a problem."

She smiles faintly, grateful. "What would I do without you?"

"Oh, you'd manage. Just, you know, with a lot less chaos and leading your daughter astray. Speaking of which," she says, takes their next patient from the pile of notes, heads towards cubicles. "So I've booked the tickets, and I'm on the hunt for a hotel room, I'll get a last minute deal somewhere. And Chakra has no idea?"

"She doesn't suspect a thing. Have I told you you're amazing?"

"Yep, but you can totally keep telling me."

She's just stepped out of resus, headed back to the admin station to find Bea, when she realises there's something wrong.

There's a group of them, huddled around the desk, all look up, stare, suddenly silent, as she walks over.

It's the kind of scene that might be expected after a major incident being called in, and yet it doesn't quite feel right, somehow; none of the usual signs of action, no sign of Mrs Beauchamp.

"What is it?" Alicia asks.

Eight pairs of eyes stare back at her, as though none of them quite know what to say.

"Alicia," Bea says softly. "Alicia, come with me. Mrs Beauchamp needs you in her office."

She places her hands upon Alicia's shoulders, guides her gently into Mrs Beauchamp's office before Alicia can argue, closes the door firmly behind them.

Her mind is racing, in those brief moments. They must have been brief, she'll realise later, but they feel like a lifetime. Every patient she's treated over the last few weeks floods through her mind, searching frantically for anything she might have screwed up, anything that might have been grounds for a complaint, overprotective parents she had to overrule, there must be something, this is going to look ever so slightly better if at least she has an idea of why she's been summoned into Mrs Beauchamp's office, what she's done to warrant those shocked faces at the admin station, the silence, she must have done something…

"Alicia." She can't quite read Mrs Beauchamp's expression. "Take a seat, just here."

"Is it the CQC?" The words come tumbling out of her mouth before she's quite registered she's spoken.

"What? No, no, it's not, it's nothing like that. Sit down."

There's gentle pressure on her shoulders, Bea guiding her down onto the sofa, gripping her hands tightly.

"We had a call for you, while you were in resus," Bea begins gently. "I tried to get you out, you were in the middle of shocking…"

She's suddenly aware that she hasn't checked her phone since she came out of resus, when was the last time she did check it…? When she started her shift?

Mrs Beauchamp takes a deep breath, walks around to sit in front of her and Bea at the coffee table, places her hand on Alicia's arm and all of a sudden, she's reminded of their crisis meetings they used to hold in here, in those dark days after Ethan left.

"Chakra's gone missing," she tells her.

Everything stops.

"What…?"

Her voice doesn't sound like her own, strange, strangled, faint, broken.

"Bea picked up the phone, I took over when she tried to get you out of resus. Her teacher said she asked to go to and use the toilets, is that right?" she glances to Bea for confirmation.

"She thought she'd been gone for a while," Bea continues, and it's only now that Alicia realises her voice is shaking. "She was about to send someone down to check on her, and then one of the office staff came down to say she'd seen a child walk out through the gate."

"It wasn't…"

"I don't think it was locked, no, I've been trying to establish that," Mrs Beauchamp explains. "I can't get anything out of them, I tried. Someone from the admin office ran out there, I think, didn't get there in time. So they've called the police. They called the police and then they called here, they've sent someone round to your house. They've got an officer watching, out of sight, in case she tries to get home. The police are going to want to speak to you… Alicia, Alicia, are you still with me? I'm going to drive you over there now, alright, we're going to meet them at Chakra's school. I think school have phoned your mum, they've told her to stay at home, just in case she turns up there. We suggested Bea's, or Ruby's, as other places she might go, Bea came up with a few places you'd usually take her, local parks, gym class, that kind of thing. Does that sound about right? Alicia?"

The whole room starts to spin, too bright and dark all at once, panic building in her chest.

"No," she shakes her head. "No, I…"

She can't breathe.

"Alright. Alright, we'll get going, then, the sooner we get there, the better. Come on," she stands, waits patiently as Bea helps Alicia to her feet shakily. "We'll get your things and we'll go. I've told Hansen I'm taking the rest of the day off, I can stay as long as you want. Breathe, sweetheart. We'll find her. It's going to be alright."

"What the hell happened?" Mrs Beauchamp demands, barges into the head teacher's office without waiting for permission to enter, practically drags Alicia along behind her, numb, head spinning.

This can't be happening.

It can't, it can't…

It was bad enough before, with Ethan, she can't do this again, not like this…

"And who are you?"

"Connie Beauchamp, Clinical Lead at Holby ED, Dr Munroe's boss, I'm here as moral support."

There have been times, over the past ten years or however long it's been, in which Alicia has been utterly terrified of Mrs Beauchamp, couldn't imagine ever wanting anything to do with her in a personal capacity.

Now is not one of those times.

Mrs Beauchamp is terrifying, yes, terrifying and meticulously organised, can be caring when she wants to be, and that's exactly why she's perfect to have on side in a crisis.

"So is anyone going to answer me?" Mrs Beauchamp steers Alicia over to the nearest free chair, sits down beside her, Alicia still struggling to get her bearings, vision blurred. "What happened?"

Chakra's teacher- Mrs Davies, Alicia can't think straight- shakes her head, visibly shaken. "I… Chakra asked to use the toilets," she stammers. "I told her she should have gone at break time, she was adamant, I let her go… I thought she'd been gone a while, I was going to send Miss Roberts down to get her but we're so stretched, one teaching assistant really isn't enough for thirty kids when four of them should really have a one to one… anyway, sorry," stalls, at the look of thunder on Mrs Beauchamp's face. "I… Fiona," she gestures to the woman stood in the corner of the room, practically still a child herself. "Fiona works in the front office, Fiona happened to look out and see Chakra slip through the gates… She called the police, obviously, her colleage on reception tried to run after her but by the time she got out there, it was too late…"

"And this was about ninety minutes ago?"

"Ninety?" Alicia repeats. "How… how did… that's so…"

She knows exactly what she wants to say, but somehow, she's lost the ability to put her thoughts into comprehensive sentences.

"It took us a while to work out who was missing," the head teacher explains. "The police were called immediately, it just took us a little longer to be sure it was Chakra who was missing…"

"Right, and what's your name?" Mrs Beauchamp asks, pulls out her iPad. "You don't mind if I take notes?"

"Oh… of course not." It's clear from the woman's face that she minds rather a lot, though she doesn't dare argue. "I'm Rachel Gainham, I'm head teacher at St Cuthbert's."

"And are you going to tell us exactly why you allowed the main gate of your school to remain unlocked all morning? Because as an ED consultant, and indeed a mother, I'm well aware that's rule number one when it comes to ensuring the safety of your students in primary education. And judging by the looks on these police officers' faces, I think they're also struggling to comprehend how you could be so horrifically irresponsible. You had a child starting back today with CAMHS intervention, for goodness sake, a child you _knew_ has a history of school refusal, how could you be so stupid?"

"The caretaker phoned in sick this morning," one of the police officers explains, disgust in her voice says it all. "It would appear Miss Gainham made the trip down to the playground herself to unlocked the gates this morning, but at no point did it occur to her to ensure they were locked again after school started. We don't think the bolt was even pushed across, Chakra would have had no trouble getting it open."

Alicia closes her eyes.

"Alicia." One of the police officers slips into the chair facing towards her. "Alicia, my name's Theresa, I'm coordinating the search for your daughter. I have officers out searching the area, we're arranging to have a report put out on local TV and radio. We spoke to your friend Bea Kinsella earlier over the phone, she gave us a list of places she thought Chakra might go, have you been told about that?"

"I…" Alicia nods, nausea rising in her throat. "I can't… think… anywhere else…"

"Okay. We've got those covered, if she's seen in any of those places, we'll find her. Do you have a recent photo of her you can forward to us?"

She pulls her phone from her pocket, scrolls through her photos.

Chakra beams back at her, stood in the gardens at Chalice Well, what now seems like a lifetime ago.

"Will… will that…?"

"That's perfect. Can I borrow your phone? I'll forward it to the police email."

Wordlessly, Alicia hands it over, numb.

She shouldn't have shouted. She shouldn't have shouted, she should have thrown the goddamn things away when she promised she would, should have avoided this morning's confrontation altogether, her memories of this morning will now forever be tarnished with losing control and shouting at her daughter regardless of the terms they parted on, Chakra's look of utter distress as Mrs Davies led her away across the school playground, and they'd made up, all forgiven, but that isn't the point, she lost it with her, _stupid, Alicia, stupid…_

"She knows my mobile number," she realises suddenly. "I think she does, anyway, I made her learn it a few months back…"

"Okay. Okay, that's good. And you haven't had any missed calls this morning? No. Okay. And you've no idea where she might have gone?"

"She's… she's been off school for two months. She's… she's been referred to CAMHS… she's… they think anorexia, she's been refusing to go to school, we… we haven't managed to get any real explanation from her why, but she's terrified, she was being physically sick, before January, whenever I tried to get her here, she was so anxious. She didn't want to come in today, the child psych she's been seeing said I have to send her even if it's making her ill, so…"

There's a knock at the door, hesitant.

"Yes?"

The door swings open.

"Miss Gainham? Sorry to interrupt, I've got Chakra Munroe's things."

There's a flurry of activity behind her, and then Mrs Beauchamp is beside her again before Alicia has even registered that she's gone, places something on the floor beside her, carefully drapes Chakra's purple coat across her lap and it's all too much.

"I… I need some air…"

"Alright," Theresa says gently. "Alright. I'd like to ask you a few more questions, but we can take a break. Do you know the way out?"

Alicia nods.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Mrs Beauchamp asks, and she shakes her head.

"I just want to…"

"Okay. We'll be right here."

It's only as she crosses the playground to the front gates- the now padlocked front gates- that Alicia realises just how bitterly cold it is today, unusual for mid-March.

She needed to see. What she thinks it will tell her, god only knows, but she needed to see.

She shouldn't have picked this school. She's thought that so many times, for so many reasons, over the last few months, but never has Alicia felt it as forcefully as she does now. Set at the end of a housing estate, labyrinth of roads heading off in all directions, Holby Common not all that far away, main road into the city centre less than a two-minute walk away, leads towards the train station, the motorway junction, endless quiet alleyways.

Chakra could be anywhere by now.

How are the police even going to know where to start?

She feels as though a part of her has been wrenched away, heart torn in two. Her little girl is out there somewhere, alone, cold, lost, anything could have happened, she could be injured, she could been seen by the wrong person, she could have…

Alicia retches, doubles over, empties her stomach at the bottom of the gates before she can stop herself.

Chakra. Chakra.

She's suddenly aware of Chakra's coat, still clutched against her chest.

She raises it to her nose to inhale her scent as though she's moving through a dream world, the way she used to do with her daughter's tiny baby clothes, back when she was in NICU, but all she can smell is the Marc Jacobs she covered herself with before leaving the house to mask the lingering remains of that awful morning, and the distinctive smell of tobacco clinging to the fabric.

 _She's seven, for god's sake, Alicia. She's seven, she's got tiny delicate lungs, she's seven..._

Alicia bursts into tears.

"Chakra!" She screams, somewhere between a sob and a strangled, broken cry. "Chakra!"

 **If you've made it to the end of that, I would love to know what you thought, reviews are always massively appreciated. And if you hate me, I'm sorry! And once again, apologies for the length!**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	24. Chapter 24

**Just a couple of things before you read this chapter- you know the drill, I love to bore you all with added touches, but this first bit is properly** **relevant, honest.**

 **Most of you (I hope) will be fortunate enough to not have experienced someone you love going missing. I've been writing since I was 10, and I've written a lot of missing people, both adults and children, over the years, but this is the first time I've done it since my dad went missing. It was an experience completely different to anything I could possibly have imagined. It truly, truly does change the way you think for those hours in which they're gone.**

 **If you've PMed with me before, I may have told you that I started writing this story partly because I found it therapeutic. That's especially true of this chapter. I've really tried to access that mental place I was in when my own family member was missing for this chapter, and it may not be quite what you're expecting if you haven't experienced it yourself, but this is the closest I can get to capturing that state of mind. Things kind of pass by as though you're observing them happening to someone else or watching a film, reading a book, or that was my experience, at least. I really hope you get a sense of that through Alicia's narrative- and please do let me know if you do.**

 **Final thing before I leave you in peace- the lyrics at the beginning are from one of my favourite Irish folk songs. There's a moment in this chapter in which music plays- if it were an actual episode, it would be the version of The Foggy Dew from the musical The Bloody Irish. As always, you can find it on youtube and I 100% recommend you have a listen, it really is hauntingly beautiful and completely captures the mood I was aiming for with this chapter.**

 **And yes- I was going to give you the Ruby chapter next- I promise it will be the one after this but I think this may be the one you've all been waiting for, and I was too impatient to give it to you ;)**

 **Chapter 24**

 _'But to and fro in my dreams I go,_

 _And I'd kneel and pray for you,_

 _For slavery fled, O glorious dead,_

 _When you fell in the foggy dew.'_

 _-The Foggy Dew, Anon_

She feels as though she's drowning, those next few hours.

It's like being dragged back to those awful, dark days after Ethan left all over again, except it's a thousand times worse because at least Ethan was an adult; a mentally unwell adult, yes, badly in need of the very thing he was so determined to push away but an adult, perfectly capable of looking after himself.

Chakra is still so, so little.

She feels numb, somehow. She remembers this feeling well from last time around; it's as though she's disassociated herself from it all completely, going through the motions but numb to it all because this isn't real, this is just some sort of awful living nightmare, and if she endures it for long enough it will turn out that it's all a terrible mistake and everything will go back to normal, this won't have happened…

It can't be real.

It just can't be.

She drags herself back into the head teacher's office, answers the rest of the police questions, leaves out that awful incident this morning she just can't shake because it isn't relevant, because she no longer trusts the people who can help not to focus on the irrelevant and fail to help her daughter, because they were over that, because she was forgiven, she knew she was, despite the terrible guilt she feels, because that has nothing to do with Chakra running away, nothing whatsoever.

She leaves it out because they're all going to judge her.

Because Chakra's school already think she's a terrible mother.

Because Mrs Beauchamp will look down her nose at her as though she's the worst person in the world if she knew she has allowed her daughter to breathe her toxic crap she should have binned when she promised she would- no, years ago, she should have given up the moment she found out she was pregnant, or before Chakra ever existed at all, before she could damage her- and Alicia knows only too well she deserves it, but she just can't face it, not on top of everything else.

She forgets, in those moments, she's not exactly the first parent in the world to smoke around her child, that she certainly won't be the last.

Rational thought has well and truly left her.

"So I'm going to talk you through what happens next," Theresa the police officer explains gently, holds Alicia's hands. "We're going to go and join the police search now. Okay? You've got our number. If anything changes, if you think of anywhere Chakra might be we don't already know about, you just give us a call. We're going to be monitoring your incoming calls- it's just a precaution," she explains hastily; some of Alicia's alarm must have shown on her face. "My colleagues are working through the other children, we're going to speak to her class, any others she had contact with this morning, see if Chakra said anything that could help us establish where she might go. We'll be in touch as soon as we know anything, alright? Now, it's best you go and wait somewhere, stay in one place, alright? We'll handle the search. I don't think you should be alone…"

"I can stay with her." Mrs Beauchamp tells her.

How can she sound so calm when all the world is ending?

"Okay, that's good. We'd normally suggest you stay at home and wait…"

"She wouldn't go home," Alicia shakes her head. "It's a ten-minute walk, less than, she would have turned up there ages ago. But she wouldn't go home anyway, she knows I'm in work all day…"

"You think she'd try and get to Holby ED, I know. It's a long walk from your home address, let alone for a child, even if she knew the way exactly…"

Alicia shudders.

It's not just the distance. It's everything Chakra would have to walk past to get there, all the main roads, the motorway junction, the rougher parts of town, the edge of the common…

"She didn't want me to leave her," Alicia whispers. "She practically begged me not to leave her…"

Mrs Beauchamp squeezes her shoulder gently.

"We've got officers searching the areas between here and Holby City Hospital," Theresa assures her. "We're going to do everything we can, Alicia. So you'll be at Holby ED?"

Wordlessly, Alicia nods.

"Okay. We're going to leave now, join the search, but I'll check in with you later."

Mrs Beauchamp places her hand on Alicia's back, guides her gently back out of the head's office, past Miss Gainham and Mrs Davies, sat in silence on the chairs outside.

"And you can expect to hear from my solicitor!" she calls over her shoulder.

Rachel Gainham turns white.

She allows Mrs Beauchamp to drive her back to the ED, silent, a thousand thoughts racing through her mind.

Did she tell her she loved her, when she dropped her at the school gates? She can't remember; that feels like a lifetime ago, now. Did she say it back, in the garden, after that awful eruption? She must have done, surely?

Does Chakra know she loves her?

Has she told her enough times about stranger danger? Does she know? Would she know what to do if…

She can't think about that.

Can she put Chakra's coat in the washing machine, or will that stop it being waterproof? She can't leave it like it is, can't let Chakra wear it all the while it stinks of that bloody cigarette she should never have had, will the washing machine ruin it? Probably, she reasons. She can't think straight.

Had Chakra realised? She could have gone down to the cloakroom to get it before she left, why didn't she? Had she known it smells of tobacco?

Had the other kids?

Alicia feels sick again.

She can't stop fixating on it, somehow. Maybe it's because it feels like the ultimate symbol of how badly she's messed up, all her failures.

Years of proper smoking, for god's sake, years of it, both her parents, and not once did she ever smell of second-hand smoke, they were always careful, she's such an idiot…

Chakra may not even have noticed, Alicia knows that, but it isn't the point.

Her little girl deserves so much better than her pathetic efforts at being her mother.

She manages to slip away from Mrs Beauchamp as they enter the ED, makes her excuses, tells her she needs to use the bathroom, staggers across the car park, unsteady.

Where are the nearest shops? She can't think straight, rummages through her handbag for her car keys. Wherever they are… it'll come to her in a minute… she might as well do something useful, she can't just sit here, she'll go and find Chakra a replacement, it's freezing…

Chakra is out there somewhere in just her school jumper and it's bloody freezing, shit, shit…

She shoves the key into the ignition, forgets, for a moment, until she's greeted with a sudden blast of musical theatre meets Celtic folk, one of Chakra's god-awful blood-and-guts Irish rebel fighting CDs acquired from Auntie Bea that doesn't seem quite so bad now, now she isn't here.

 _Chakra… Chakra…_

She can't do this.

All of a sudden, replacing Chakra's coat feels horribly like tempting fate.

Alicia throws herself out of the driver's seat as though she's been scalded, walks shakily back towards the ED.

She'll do this later. It's better that way anyway, she tells herself, Chakra can choose…

What if she can't? What if she never comes back, what if this is it?

She sways, vision blurred, everything green.

"Alicia? Alicia? Alicia, come on, let's get you inside." Ruby's arms wrap around her gently; she must have just finished a job, Alicia realises, must be on her way back to the ambulance station, someone must have told her… the police? School, it must have been school, they would have gone through all Chakra's emergency contacts, surely…

"Should you be here?" Ruby asks worriedly. "Maybe you should go home, I can ask Jan if she can spare me today…"

Alicia shakes her head firmly. "She wouldn't go home," she insists shakily. "She wouldn't go home, she knows I'm not there, she knows she wouldn't be able to get in and I think being by herself would freak her out anyway…"

"You think she decided to come here?"

"It's the only thing that makes any sense. She didn't want me to leave her there, she's barely let me leave her at all the last couple of days, she didn't even want me to leave her at Mam's yesterday…"

"Okay. Okay, here, then," Ruby says simply, accepts. "But you shouldn't be working, Alicia…"

"I'm not…"

It's only then that she realises she's still dressed in her scrubs, threw her NHS issue hoodie and her coat on and ran, earlier, with Mrs Beauchamp, didn't bother changing.

"Alright. Why don't you go and get changed?" Ruby suggests, guides her gently towards the staffroom. "At least then you're not going to be mistaken as on shift. Go and get changed, we'll take it from there, okay? One thing at a time."

No one is reassuring her, Alicia realises, that everything is going to be alright.

How can they?

They work in emergency medicine, they all know how this could end.

"Jan and I have every ambulance crew in Holby keeping an eye out," Ruby tells her, tightens her grip, as though she knows exactly what Alicia is thinking. "We're doing everything we can."

No one can quite meet her eyes as they walk past the admin station, no one but Gem, looks up, suddenly passing by, hesitates for a brief moment as though trying to find the courage to do this, rushes over.

"Alicia," she says carefully. "An old lady brought this in for you, you've just missed her. Patient, maybe? Not sure she speaks much English."

She holds out the wicker basket she's carrying to Alicia, seems to change her mind, hands it to Ruby instead. "Look, I'm… I'm so sorry… I'm thinking of you…" she manages, and then she turns, practically runs back down the corridor.

They take the wicker basket through to the staffroom- mercifully deserted- together, Alicia mentally scanning through her patients of the last week, trying to work out who on earth has sent her something that looks as though it's out of an age gone by.

Inside is a beautifully ornate coffee pot, long handle, almost shaped like a saucepan, golden swirls decorating its exterior, slightly chipped, and the strong aroma of fresh coffee fills the staffroom. Alongside it lies a cling film-covered plate of something indistinguishable, and a small, hinged wooden carving, closed.

Alicia picks it up out of the basket, pulls it open, hands trembling and she doesn't quite know why.

"There's a note," Ruby tells her gently.

She takes in the scene on the inside of the wooden carving, golden background, Jesus on the one side with strange symbols in the background and the odd recognisable letter thrown in, Mary and an alarmingly adult-looking baby on the other, and Alicia doesn't need to see the spidery, italic handwriting to know who it's from.

 _Dr Munroe,_

 _I have gypsy woman make you coffee. In Eastern Europe, if gypsy make you coffee, you have seven years good fortune. I leave you icon, from Convent in Minsk. I will pray for you and Шакра._

 _Yekaterina Vladimirovna Kuznetsova._

 _PS. I make you draniki also, these are potato cakes of Belarus. But I leave without butter and sour cream._

Alicia vows that if Chakra returns home safely, she'll sign up for Miss Yekaterina's adult ballet regime complete with Russian language immersion.

Ruby pours her a cup of Miss Yekaterina's coffee, takes her back down to Mrs Beauchamp's office.

"Anything?" Mrs Beauchamp asks gently.

Alicia shakes her head, breaks down and then she's screaming, sobbing hysterically, lost control before she's even quite registered that it's her making this awful noise but she can't stop, she just can't stop…

They have to find her. They have to find her, she can't lose her like this, they have to find her… Have the clocks gone back yet? This weekend, it's this weekend… it'll be getting dark in a few hours, shit, shit…

Two pairs of arms envelope her into a hug in an instant, hold her upright as her knees buckle, practically carry her over onto the sofa. The door swings open, and then Bea's arms are around her too, trembling, sniffing slightly.

She's crying too, Alicia realises. She's just trying incredibly hard not to show it, not quite succeeding.

It isn't really all that surprising, now Alicia thinks about it properly, feels awful for not considering this before. Chakra has always been close to Bea and Ruby, both of them have been incredible, over the years, and Alicia doesn't know how she would have managed without either of them, but Chakra and Bea have always had some sort of inexplicable connection, not her second mother but big sister-little sister-like, ginger telepathy, as Alicia has jokingly referred to it in the past. They get each other, somehow, so completely different in so many ways and utterly, undeniably in synch in others. Chakra probably isn't that much younger than Bea's little sister she's never seen, has even inherited similar colouring from Alicia's Irish grandmother, Bea was the one there with her the majority of the time, those first few days in NICU.

It only makes sense, really, that while Bea might be 'auntie,' she has taken on Chakra as her little sister.

Alicia has just never quite appreciated it until now.

They set up chairs in the entrance corridor, the three of them, huddle together. Ruby has been excused for the day by Jan, changed out of her uniform, Bea still technically on duty, although Mrs Beauchamp seems to have silently accepted that there's no chance of her doing any work today, allows the end of her lunchbreak to pass by.

It feels like the obvious place to wait, somehow. It's mid-afternoon now, school kick out time, Robyn finishes her shift and heads off to pick up Charlotte, avoids Alicia's eyes.

Four hours.

Chakra has been missing for four hours, give or take.

After four hours, it feels as though the best she can hope for is for Chakra to be brought in by paramedics, minor injuries.

Someone would have seen her, surely? The police are searching, but if they've missed her, somehow… surely someone would have seen her, someone would have seen her alone, in her school uniform, probably distressed, someone would have realised, called the police? What if she's trapped somewhere, what is she's hurt, what if they don't find her in time?

She's only seven. She's practically still a baby, how could anyone hurt her, surely no one could…?

Years of working in Paeds, of course, have taught her that the world is a far crueller place than that.

Every time the doors swing open she's hoping desperately, and every time it isn't, her heart breaks a little more.

She must be so frightened. She must know the route from home to Holby ED, she's been driven along it enough times, school is only around the corner… even if she had set out to walk from school to the ED, she would have been here by now, could have followed the road signs for the hospital, if nothing else. But then she would have been picked up by the police anyway, she has to be somewhere the police haven't looked, lost, scared, alone, or maybe she isn't maybe someone has…

"Alicia?" Theresa the police officer is back out of nowhere. "Alicia, shall we go and talk somewhere a little more private?"

She clings onto Ruby and Bea as they enter Mrs Beauchamp's office, hopes they'll understand she needs them to stay.

Mrs Beauchamp closes the door, lurks in the corner, protective, ready to take control if necessary, just as she was all those years ago.

"We're still searching," Theresa explains gently. "We've had a couple of sightings on York Road from the local news appeal, but Chakra was long-gone by the time we got there."

"York Road, that's…"

"She may have been trying to get here, yes. I'm going to give you this back now." She holds out Chakra's schoolbag, places it down beside the sofa. "Nothing in there to suggest Chakra was planning this, or where she might have gone. I have to ask, Chakra's father…"

Alicia shakes her head. "I haven't told him, no. Same reasons I gave you earlier. He's got Huntington's Disease, there's a known link between Huntington's and stress, he lives in Glastonbury, he's in a clinic, there's no point telling him just yet, he'd be out of his mind with worry, I can't do that to him…"

"Alicia…"

"When I told him I was pregnant… he'd just been diagnosed, we didn't know if Chakra was going to have it too, we had to wait to get her tested, to see if… and he went downhill so quickly, I could see it happening and I couldn't…"

"Alicia. I understand, I really do. But it's been almost five hours now, it's been four since Chakra was last sighted. We need to start thinking about getting her into nation-wide media, at this point, not just Holby. It's going to be getting dark soon… I know, I know." She lays her hand over Alicia's, encased tightly in Ruby's. "It's much better Chakra's dad hears it from you than he sees it on the news, isn't it?"

He's going to be wondering why she hasn't replied to the texts he sent her on her breaks, since her first at half ten, perhaps he just thinks she's busy, inundated, he won't have imagined this…

This is going to destroy Ethan. Emotionally, certainly, but it could send his physical health into an irreversible downward spiral, this could be the beginning of the end…

"Okay," Alicia says shakily. "Okay."

"Alright. We'd like to search Chakra's room, just in case. Are you happy to come with us now, let us in? It shouldn't take long, you can call Chakra's father afterwards and we'll alert the media? I'll give you a moment to gather your things."

"Most children who just run away from school are found within the first couple hours aren't they?"

It's a hypothetical question, really. Alicia knows the answer only too well, she just doesn't want to believe it.

Theresa just smiles sympathetically. "I'll give you a minute, okay? I'll be just outside. Alicia? You might want to look in her lunchbox."

She pulls Chakra's lunchbox out of her school bag, thoroughly confused. Chakra didn't even make it to lunchtime, barely made it halfway through the morning before she bolted…

She takes off the lid, food inside untouched, only then remembers the post it note she stuck to the inside that morning, an eternity ago.

 _Love you xxx_

That's all she wrote. Two simple words, three kisses, a terrible attempt at a butterfly drawn alongside with Chakra's felt tips before she called her down for breakfast she barely managed to eat.

Her daughter must have opened it before assembly, anxious, perhaps, overwhelmed at the thought of lunchtime.

 _Love you too xxx_ , Chakra has written below it in neat cursive pencil.

Alicia thinks her heart might just break.

She calls him from her living room while the police are searching the house, uses the landline- it's best, they tell her, if Chakra knows her mobile number, if there's a chance she might try to call. She speaks to her mam briefly first, still sat in her own living room window, waiting, just in case, but that only makes her feel worse.

She has to do this. Somehow, she has to find the strength to do this.

He's going to be livid, and rightly so. She can't tell him what's happened without giving him the truth, the whole truth, this time, and he has every right to be furious that she didn't tell him before.

She just wanted to protect him. All she's wanted all along is to protect him, but now the world is collapsing all around her and she can't, not anymore.

He picks up on the second ring. "Hey, you escaped for the day? I must have got your shifts wrong, I'm sorry, I thought you were finishing at six, I've probably been bombarding you with texts at the most inconvenient times…"

She has to do it. She doesn't have a choice, she has to tell him, has to shatter his heart into pieces the way hers has been, can't protect him any longer, somehow, she has to find the strength to do it…

"Ethan," she begins, fights back the tears that just won't stop falling today; how does she even have any tears left to cry? "Ethan, I need to tell you something…."

"Alicia? Alicia, you alright?" His tone has changed instantly from joy at hearing her voice to worry, concern, and she did this to him, she did this, it's happening all over again…

"I've lied to you," she blurts out. She should have planned this, should have worked out what she was going to say ahead of time, why can't she get anything right today? "I've lied to you, and I'm sorry, I'm so, so, sorry, I just wanted to protect you, I was going to tell you but I didn't want to hurt you, I was scared I was going to…"

She's crying openly now, lost control already and she hasn't even begun, babbling, guilty, desperate, distraught.

"Alicia? Alicia listen, if this is…" There's heartbreak in Ethan's voice now, does he know, how could he know… "If there's someone else, it's alright," he says, sorrowful, accepting. "I understand. It's been eight years, Alicia, I never expected you to wait for me all this time, if there's someone else, it's alright, you deserve someone better, someone who isn't going to…"

"Ethan, no, Ethan…"

"It's okay. It's okay… we… we can work something out, with Chakra, I don't want to deny her of a step father, god knows he's going to be able to do more with her than I will in a few years, you both deserve…"

"Ethan! Ethan, there is no one else!" She doesn't mean to shout at him, not quite so forcefully, but she can't have him torture himself for a moment longer, can't have him believing that.

She loves him. She loves him more than she did eight years ago, if anything, missed him more than she could ever put into words and she needs him, she can't do this without him, she needs him back, properly, needs both of them back…

"There's been no one else, I swear! No one! I need you to believe me, Ethan, please. No one, not once, I couldn't… I didn't want anyone else, I could never love anyone else like I love you, never. I never lied about that, I promise, I could never… no dates, nothing, not even any stupid, drunken mistakes, I never could, after Eddie, you know that, only that once, with you, and how we even ended up with Chakra from just that is a miracle in itself…"

 _Chakra…_

"Chakra's gone missing," Alicia sobs. "Chakra's gone missing, she ran away from school and it's all my fault…"

"What? Alicia…"

"I lied to you, she hasn't… it hasn't been the school holidays, she hadn't been to school for two months until today, it's so much worse than I told you but I couldn't burden you with it all, I just couldn't do it, I was scared it would all be too much and you wouldn't want to do, this, us, I thought it would freak you out and she's been so ill, Ethan, it wasn't fair, I couldn't tell you until she trusted you, I haven't sent her to school for two months because she's been so ill but the child psych from CAMHS won't listen to me, it's school that's the problem, something about school but I can't work out what, she was so much worse before I stopped sending her, she's gone massively downhill again in the last week or so and she knew, she knew the child psych was going to make a decision about school yesterday, she had a total, total meltdown Sunday night, she was pleading with me not to leave her when I dropped her off this morning and I was stupid, I went along with it, I felt like I had to, the CAMHS psychiatrist made that perfectly clear and I have to at least try to cooperate with her, don't I, Chakra needs help, I need them to help her, I can't piss them off completely, and the idiot bloody head teacher left the gate open and she must have been so scared, she must have felt like she couldn't cope, I don't know, she ran off this morning and the gate was unlocked, for god's sake, she wouldn't even have struggled, she would have been able to just slip out and make a run for it and we haven't been able to find her, and it's so cold out there, she hasn't taken her coat, or anything, she must be freezing, she's barely eaten since we left Glastonbury…"

"Alicia…"

"I've lost her, Ethan, I've lost our daughter, and I failed her long before that, I'm so, so sorry, I didn't want to tell you, I thought she'd turn up in a couple of hours, I thought she was just trying to get to the ED but it's been five hours, it shouldn't take anything like five hours to walk from her school to the ED, she's out there somewhere in the cold, I just… I can't think about anything else, she has to be out there somewhere, I don't know if she's scared to come home now or I just… I don't know, but she's underweight enough for a CAMHS referral, she's going to start hitting hypothermia territory if we don't find her soon and it's all my fault…"

"Alicia! Alicia, please, listen to me," Ethan pleads. "Alicia. None of this is your fault, darling, please don't think this is your fault. They'll find her. The police must be searching for her, right, Alicia, they'll find her…"

"What if they don't? What if they don't, what if this is it, what if someone's taken her, what if she's injured and we don't find her in time, what if…"

"You can't think like that, Alicia, that's going to destroy you. This is _not_ your fault, darling. You were caught between a rock and a hard place, you thought you were doing the right thing…"

"I've lost her, Ethan, I've lost her…"

"No, you haven't, darling. She's gone missing, it's different." Ethan's voice is trembling, and Alicia doesn't even want to think about whether it's predominantly out of fear for their daughter or Huntington's related. "Her school lost her, Alicia. Not you. What kind of primary school leaves the gate unlocked, that isn't your fault, none of this is, she should never have been able to just slip out of school, this is _not_ your fault…"

"But even that's my fault, I picked that school, I put it at the top of the application form when we moved and she's gone from perfectly happy and healthy to seriously struggling in a matter of months since she's been there, _that's_ my fault, if nothing else…"

"What's wrong with her?" Ethan asks quietly.

He sounds as broken as she does and she hasn't even told him yet.

"School refusal," she tells him heavily, voice breaking. "Not just school refusal, I told you, didn't I, I told you she's been getting herself into such a panic about school she's been vomiting, I just can't get her to tell me what it is about school that's so awful, I've tried, I honestly have, and she stopped eating properly around November and it's just all been an awful downward spiral from there, and I know you started to notice, I know I kept covering for her and I'm so sorry, she gets so defensive about it, she just clams up, I couldn't risk shutting her off when she's barely talking to me about it as it is. And she's been so inconsistent, CAMHS diagnosed her with anorexia yesterday morning and I'm not saying she hasn't got problems, she has, but you've seen her, sometimes she eats normally and sometimes she just won't, there's no way she's got anorexia, she's far too inconsistent but the psychiatrist won't listen to me, she wants to stick an anorexia label on her and dismiss the school thing as separation anxiety but that doesn't fit, I know it doesn't, school's the only place I can't get her to go and I just can't work out why, there has to be something I'm not seeing but I just don't know, I don't know what to do with her anymore, I really don't, everything I try seems to be wrong, except this, I knew sending her back to school was a terrible idea, I should never have gone along with it, I should have fought harder for her yesterday but it's too late now, she's gone, Ethan, she's been gone for five hours, she's far too little to be lost by herself for five hours…"

It's all too much at that point and she breaks down again, sobs hysterically, can't shake the mental image of Chakra injured somewhere, out of sight, undetectable, too isolated to scream for help, Chakra…

"Alicia, Alicia listen." Ethan's crying too, she can hear it in his voice, must be trying to hold himself together for her, it shouldn't be like this, he's her father, this is just as traumatic for him and he's just had it all dumped on him out of nowhere…

"It'll be alright, Alicia. It'll be alright, the police will find her…"

"You don't know that," Alicia sobs. "Missing children usually turn up in a couple of hours, if they've just run away, anyone could have seen her, she could have been…"

"You can't think like that, you know you can't. I know it's hard, darling, I know, but you need to try and be strong, if… when, she turns up, if she ran away from school because she was distressed she's going to need you…"

"If you haven't gathered from what I've just told you that I'm pretty much the biggest failure ever when it comes to being a mother…"

"What? No, Alicia, no, that's not true. I've seen you with her, you're an amazing mum to her, I always knew you would be. This is _not_ your fault, Alicia. None of it is. And you know that, how many parents must you have reassured about this over the years? Whatever's wrong with her, you haven't caused it. You've done everything right, you're trying to get her the help she needs, you love her, and she knows that, believe me, no one who's seen you with her would be in any doubt of that. You're not the one who lost her, her school did that. We're going to get her back," he says gently, though his voice wobbles with uncertainty. "We will, we'll get her back."

"And what if we don't? What if we never see her again, what if someone's taken her…"

"You can't think like that. I should be there," Ethan curses. "I should be there, but just the train journey would exhaust me…"

"Please don't," Alicia pleads with him. "It's not that I don't want you here, Ethan, I do, I want you here more than anything, but I can't face having to worry about you as well…"

"No, no, I'm staying here, it's alright. I know, I couldn't do that to you. I just feel like I should be doing something useful…"

"Believe me, you wouldn't be able to do anything useful here either. I feel exactly the same, I feel like I should be doing something, I should be trying to find her, it feels like I've given up on her…" Alicia trails off, looks up, Theresa and the other police officer standing in the doorway with Ruby. "Listen, I've got to go, I think the police want me. I'll keep you updated, okay? You can text me whenever, I… I'll reply whenever I can. The police said to try and keep calls to a minimum, I made Chakra learn my mobile number a couple of months ago, I'm hoping she still remembers it."

"It's alright. It's alright, I'll text."

"Okay. I think the police are going to try and get her onto the news later… maybe just steer clear…"

"Got it. Alicia, I… I love you." His voice shakes with fear.

"I know," Alicia says softly. "I know. I love you, too."

Nothing. A full search of the house, and the police have found nothing.

She knew they wouldn't.

Chakra didn't plan this. She didn't want to go to school, she made that so clear, she told Alicia over and over she didn't want to go and Alicia promised her she wouldn't send her in tomorrow if it was terrible but it must have been so awful that she couldn't see past 3pm, she must have thought she couldn't cope, she must have been desperate…

It suddenly hits her, as Ruby drives her back over to the ED.

 _Promises doesn't mean anything if you keep breaking them!_

That's what Chakra had said. That awful argument after Chakra caught her smoking at the bottom of the garden, it wasn't about the smoking at all- or it was, of course it was, she was stupid, she should never have promised Chakra she was going to quit and then gone back on it at the best of times, certainly not now.

She promised her. She promised Chakra if she tried school today and it was awful then she wouldn't make her go again, and then she went and demonstrated to her spectacularly that promises meant nothing to her, that she was perfectly happy to break them.

Chakra must have been afraid that she was going to break that promise too, she must have thought her own choice was to run away back to her…

Shit.

Bile rises in her throat.

She escapes Ruby in the ED car park, makes up an excuse about wanting to get something out of her own car, retrieves Chakra's coat, abandoned earlier on the passenger seat.

 _Stupid, Alicia, stupid. You brought this on yourself, if only you hadn't done it, if only you'd just kept your promise and given up the damned things…_

Alicia empties the pockets, hair pins, hair bands, one of those ugly plastic doll things that come in the hidden packaging like Russian dolls that Chakra's never liked, must have been out of a party bag, or something, couple of seashells and some shrivelled daisy chains, places it all carefully in her handbag as though they're the most precious items in the world.

She takes the lift down into the hospital basement, throws Chakra's tobacco-infused coat into the incinerator.

It feels like where it belongs, as she does it. It feels like the ultimate reminder of her terrible betrayal, and she's never going to let Chakra wear it again, not while it smells like that, she's going to buy her a new one anyway, she just wants rid of the damned thing.

It's only after it's gone, too late, that Alicia decides perhaps it's tempting fate, destroying it like that.

She howls in the basement for goodness only knows how long before she finally manages to pull herself together a little, drags herself back up to Mrs Beauchamp's office.

Six pm. She should be finishing her shift now, should be walking out to her car, heading over to collect Chakra from her mam's…

 _Chakra. Chakra…_

 _"Where are you, sweetheart?"_ she whispers, inaudible, words leave her lips before she's time to stop herself. _"Where are you?"_

"What do you want me to do, lovely?" Bea asks, pulls her into her arms as she enters Mrs Beauchamp's office. "My shift's finished, not that I've exactly done much to warrant being here today, but I could go home, if you think she might still turn up at mine…"

"I don't know," Alicia tells her, on the verge of tears again. "I don't know what I want, I don't know…"

She doesn't want her to leave her. Perhaps she's right, perhaps they should all go their separate ways, sit in the front windows like her mam and wait, hope, pray to a god Alicia stopped believing in a long time ago, but selfishly she doesn't want Bea to leave her…

"Oh, okay, okay. Right, I'm going to give my neighbour a call. The police are still watching my house, right, just in case?"

Alicia nods.

"Okay. So I'll call my neighbour, I'll get her to go round and put the lights on, Chakra will think I'm in if she turns up on the doorstep, the police will see her and take it from there. Plan? We'll stay here for a bit then, we can review the situation later."

Ruby appears in the doorway, tray of steaming mugs of herbal tea in her hands.

They heat up Miss Yekaterina's Belarusian potato cakes in the staffroom microwave, but none of them can face the thought of food, end up leaving them at the admin station for the others instead, sit in silence, curled up together, uninterrupted until Mrs Beauchamp storms down the corridor outside at half six.

"What do you mean, you're not coming in?" she snaps. "She's a dog, Dylan! We've been understaffed all day, like I told you, she's a _dog_ , this is nothing compared to… oh, forget it! Fine, fine, you do that, I'll just find another stupidly overpriced locum, shall I, Hansen will love that! Hello?" She sighs loudly as she pushes open the door, spots Alicia, Ruby and Bea on the sofa in the corner. "Sorry, sorry. Dylan's phoned, he's not coming in tonight, Dervla's run off again. I mean, it's just ridiculous, isn't it, she's a dog, she's got form for this, always turns up in the end, like I can find a locum at an hour's notice…"

"I can do it," Alicia offers guiltily. "I can do it, I've caused enough trouble today…"

"No, you can't," Mrs Beauchamp says firmly. "I'm not having you working until Chakra's found safely. You neither." She turns to Bea. "So don't even think about offering. I'll handle it."

Alicia doesn't want to ask her what happens if Chakra isn't found safely at all.

They hide out in Mrs Beauchamp's office for the next hour or so. Charlie and Duffy slip in at seven- Alicia is hyper-aware of time, now, just over eight hours since Chakra went missing- bring pizza no one eats (though vegan pizza, so Bea wouldn't have touched it anyway, admittedly) and more chamomile tea, multiple cups of coffee, seem to have realised none of them will be sleeping tonight.

There's a gentle knock on the door at seven forty-five, Theresa and her colleague whose name Alicia can't remember entering the room slowly.

"Alicia," Theresa begins. She's clutching something in her hands, Alicia realises, something she can't quite make out.

She takes a seat in Mrs Beauchamp's chair, pauses for a moment. "I've just met with Mrs Davies, Chakra's class teacher," she explains gently. "She stayed at work until late this evening, she was still tidying up the classroom when the cleaners came in. She found this in the bins." She holds out the object; a bag, it suddenly becomes clear, a transparent plastic bag, golden red, fibres, and it takes Alicia a moment to realise what it is, out of context. "Is this Chakra's?"

It's hair, a good inch and a half long, must be around the length of the end of one of the French plaits she did in Chakra's hair this morning, unmistakably her daughter's shade of ginger.

Rage boils within her like nothing she's ever quite experienced before. Someone has cut her daughter's hair, right in the middle of a classroom, for god's sake, broad daylight, in the presence of her pathetic excuse of a teacher and the teaching assistant, one of those bastard kids has cut her daughter's hair…

It wasn't her, after all, maybe it wasn't her and the bloody cigarette…

She's silent for a moment, shocked, can't process it.

"This is assault, right?" she manages at last. "That's definitely hers… cutting someone's hair without their consent is assault…"

"If it's a child in her class, then they're under the age of criminal responsibility…"

"Okay, so it's a whole new level of bullying, then. I'm sorry, most of the kids in her class will be eight by now, seven or eight is old enough to know exactly what they were doing, I don't care if they're old enough to accept criminal responsibility or not, that's still technically assault, not to mention that when you consider this must have happened at some point before Chakra ran off, I don't think it's illogical to assume…"

"No, and we're taking it very seriously, Alicia, I promise. The other children in Chakra's class will be spoken to tomorrow morning…"

"And are you handling that, or will school be? Because I have been on at them about her being bullied for months, _months_ , and they've done absolutely nothing about it because apparently Chakra hasn't given them enough specifics as to exactly what's happening and who's said what to her, but I'm assuming you've read her CAMHS report?"

"We were given access earlier, yes."

"Then you'll know that not wanting to explain why she's upset is a bit of a recurring theme with Chakra at the moment, but it seems to mean anything but there's nothing wrong… Look, I just want her back." Her eyes are flooding with tears again; Alicia doesn't think she's ever cried so much in her life, not even when Chakra was born. "I'm not interested in charging an eight-year-old with assault, I just think it has something to do with her running away, it has to, and I just want her back, that's all…"

"I know, I know. I understand. We'll be speaking to the other children in her class again tomorrow. First thing. Alright? We'll take it from there."

She feels as though she's drowning, drowning under the weight of a nightmare from which she can't wake up and she doesn't know what to do…

"We've had a potential sighting," Theresa tells her. "Report of a child matching Chakra's description on Holby Common this evening- it could be nothing, we're searching the area now…"

"Holby Common's huge, it's dark…"

"We've pulled in resources from across the county. And with the volunteers…"

"Volunteers?"

"Yes," Theresa confirms. "You didn't know? A lady called Yekaterina and what must be almost the entire congregation of St Peter's Cathedral in East Holby, the Russian Orthodox one. She's Chakra's dance teacher, I think my colleague said…"

"Rhythmic gymnastics, it's basically the same thing." She has massively, massively underestimated Miss Yekaterina over the last six months, will have to buy her an incredible end of term gift to say thank you.

Is she even still going to be taking Chakra to Miss Yekaterina's come the end of term? Will Chakra be here to take?

She can't do this.

She's endured this long enough, surely she's served her punishment?

She just wants her back. She needs her back safely, she isn't even sure she knows who she is anymore if a large element of her identity isn't Chakra's mother, she can't do this…

Theresa's finishing her shift for the day, she explains, but the police team taking over for the night will keep them updated if anything changes, and she'll be back on shift tomorrow morning.

They sit in silence again for a while, nothing to say, exhausted and yet sleep is out of the question, would be even if it wasn't only just gone eight in the evening.

It comes out of nowhere. One minute everything is silent, and the next the heavens have opened; it's well and truly dark outside now, night beginning to set in, but the downpour is so heavy that it pounds against the windows of Mrs Beauchamp's office, batters them with raindrops, practically hail.

Chakra's out there somewhere. She'll be cold enough already, she'll be soaked through in a matter of minutes if this carries on…

Alicia breaks down again.

She's not sure quite how much time passes, but she's still clinging to Bea, Ruby's arms wrapped around them both, when there's a gentle knock on the door.

Louise enters first, followed by Charlie, Duffy, Elle, Rash, Gem, Noel, Jade, Mrs Beauchamp following behind them.

They're all dressed in waterproofs, carrying umbrellas, dressed for venturing out into the storm outside.

Chakra isn't, Chakra must be frozen…

"We're going to go and join the volunteer search of Holby Common," Louise explains. The police told us Chakra's gym coach has got a volunteer group together. And Noel's passing out flyers on reception, I don't think there's anyone who's passed through the ED since his shift started who hasn't seen a photo of Chakra."

"We'll find her, Alicia," Duffy says softly. "If she's on Holby Common, we'll find her."

It's only then that Alicia notices the bag of medical supplies draped over her arm, the plastic bag of blankets over Jade's.

"Thank you," Alicia whispers shakily. "Thank you."

She's no tears left to cry.

 **You can buy your own Orthodox icon like Alicia's (or Christmas decoration, Russian doll and other assorted handmade gifts) from the real nuns of St Elisabeth's Convent, Minsk, Belarus, at a Christmas market near you, if you're in the UK or some parts of Europe. All proceeds fund their work to help the disabled, homeless, addicts and psychiatric patients of Minsk, where health and social care is practically non-existent compared to the UK. They also teach Belarusian to children at their Sunday schools, which is really, really important because the Belarusian language is dying rapidly thanks to Stalinism. Please do stop and chat if you see them, they are lovely, lovely people and usually speak very good English. But maybe don't tell them you were sent from fanfiction!**

 **Thank you, thank you, thank you, to the wonderful 20BlueRoses, Katie, Guest and lewisek18 for your reviews, I was so nervous to post the last chapter and your kind words are so appreciated.**

 **Reviews would be wonderful, I am almost out of chapters I have pre-drafted now, and they totally make me write faster ;)**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	25. Chapter 25

**So this is the Ruby bonus chapter- kind of. There was something else I planned to do with Ruby in this chapter but it really didn't fit when I came to write it, so those scenes are now going to be in the 24 weeks chapter instead. So to my Ruby fans- this is half of it now, and the other (longer) half is on its way, I promise!**

 **Chapter 25**

 **23 Weeks**

It feels like an almighty struggle, surviving that next week.

She's in shock, Alicia realises, as she crosses over into the twenty third week. She's in shock, completely, undeniably so, and she can't quite understand how she failed to realise it until now.

It's the exomphalos, of course, triggered by the exomphalos. No part of her wants to accept that this is happening, that her baby is going to be desperately ill from the moment she's born, at the mercy of Mr Barling and the NICU team, unstable, no guarantees- Alicia doesn't care about the stats, she just can't see it in those terms when it's her own baby, has a new-found appreciation for all the parents she's tried and failed to console in paeds over the last couple of years.

It's the exomphalos, undeniably so, but it's not just that. It's too much, somehow, it all just feels as though it's become too much; the weeks of uncertainty, Ethan's diagnosis, Ethan… the accident, Ethan's departure, Ethan gone, more uncertainty, the nightmare of trying to ignore it all, conceal her pregnancy despite half the ED's complete and utter refusal to play along with her (and she knows they mean well, she really does, but she wishes they would just let her do this her way, stop trying to force a confession out of her before she's ready to admit the obvious, she knows she looks like a bloody whale already at twenty three weeks, for god's sake), and then that tremendous sense of relief at her baby's negative test results, immediately followed by the blow of the exomphalos diagnosis, the rest of the nightmare that was that first appointment…

It's too much. It's just too much. It's too many emotions, too many extremes in such a short space of time, no chance to make sense of it all in her head before she's been forced to move on to the latest element, and now her head is just a mess and Alicia doesn't know how to deal with it.

She doesn't even know where to begin.

She goes through the motions, that next week. She struggles her way through her shifts and then she comes home and she sleeps, just sleeps, because all of a sudden, she's horrifically tired, as though her body is attempting to catch up on all the hours of sleep lost to stress and hurt and emotional distress over the last eleven weeks, whether she likes it or not.

She knows Ruby and Bea are worried about her. That much is obvious, despite the fact that their paths hardly seem to cross that week, different shifts, odd patterns for all three of them (the ED still understaffed, locum dependent, following Ethan's departure). Bea thinks she's depressed, Alicia suspects, and maybe she is, maybe that's exactly what this is, but she hasn't the energy to try to make sense of it.

All she knows is that it feels as though everything is falling apart, slowly but surely.

She's not shutting down, not intentionally.

She's just exhausted.

She's exhausted, and the physical changes aren't helping. She feels as though she's suddenly ballooned in the space of two days or something completely ridiculous, undeniably pregnant and yet she still doesn't feel ready to make it official, real, and rationally she knows that this needed to happen, that Bea's making it her mission to keep her hydrated since her midwife appointment is for her own good, for her baby's own good, but it's not that simple in her head, and she knows she's supposed to be enjoying this but she just feels fat, uncomfortable, suddenly thrust into some sort of nightmare she's not allowed herself to mentally prepare for and she can't for the life of her see how anybody enjoys pregnancy, full stop, it must all be some sort of awful lie…

She feels as though she's lost all control of her life, somehow. She's been in denial for eleven weeks, and perhaps that was stupid, perhaps she's brought this on herself, but it was the only way she could see to cope at first. First it was her registrar exams, painfully soon after she found out, after Ethan's revelation that changed everything, and Alicia had told herself that it was best to just block it all out, not to think about it, get through her exams and worry about it all later.

But then there had been Ethan to worry about, decisions to make, and yes, she had thought about it then, of course she had, but the only way she had been able to cope with it all was to detach, she realises that now. They talked about it, they went through with the appointment with genetics, she took a pregnancy test at her GP, they decided the only decision they were ever going to be able to live with was to have the baby tested, that they couldn't put it- her, her now- through a life overshadowed by Huntington's Disease. But all the time, she was never thinking of it as _her_ baby, something growing inside her. Not really.

It was like a patient, really, a patient whose care she was assessing…

Not hers.

To think of this baby as hers would have just made it all too painful.

It's easy now to see that she was so far down the path of coping through complete and utter denial by the time Ethan left, by the time she was placed on the waiting list for amniocentesis, by the time she must have started looking pregnant (Alicia doesn't know quite when that was, exactly, is that ridiculous? Everything has blurred into one horrible agonising mess in her mind, and she was actively avoiding all the changes anyway), that it would have started becoming obvious, at work, where she couldn't hide in baggy jumpers and have no one suspect a thing, by the time she made it to that awful midwife appointment and the world ended all over again in a way she had never anticipated…

She's so far gone now that she doesn't know how to cope with the knowledge that her own baby is going to be one of those she's seen on her NICU placements for specialist training without heading straight back into denial.

Alicia isn't sure she ever really came out of that tunnel at all.

It's not that she doesn't love this baby; that couldn't be further than the truth. She loves her more than she could have ever imagined possible, wants her desperately, even if this wasn't planned.

Alicia can't deny her NICU placement, all her time in Paeds of late, has brought out a maternal side in her she didn't know she had, and perhaps she would have been actively trying for a baby by now, in another lifetime, had it not been for Eddie.

She loves this baby so much that accepting how ill she's going to be when she's born is just too painful.

Add in the fact that she's screwed herself over well and truly over the last eleven weeks of denial, suddenly needs to get her head around the fact that she's twenty-three weeks pregnant and she never really allowed herself to accept it all in the first place, back when she found out, and it's all just a lethal combination.

She doesn't know how to deal with it.

"Alicia? Alicia, can I come in?" Ruby knocks on her bedroom door softly. "Alicia? Okay, I'm coming in," she says carefully, when no answer comes. "I don't want you to panic, alright, it's just me." There's a flurry of movement, the door creaks open, and then a gentle pressure on her shoulder, huddled under the duvet, cold, still half asleep, reluctant to move. "Alicia? You're on shift this morning too, right? You need to wake up now. I've brought you coffee, I'll just put it here. Alicia? You alright?"

She moans softly, shifts, uncomfortable, heavy, knows she's slept all night but feels as exhausted as she did when she collapsed into bed the night before. "What time is it?"

"It's six thirty, you've got plenty of time. I'm in too this morning, I can drive us. I'm going to…" Ruby begins, but Alicia doesn't hear the rest of it, familiar wave of nausea washing over her out of nowhere and she bolts, rushes into the bathroom, collapses over the toilet, vomits.

"Oh, okay. It's okay." Ruby must have followed behind her, crouches down next to her, holds back her hair. "You're alright."

Alicia grimaces, frustrated. "I thought this had stopped weeks ago…"

"I don't think it's all that uncommon to have morning sickness on and off well beyond the first trimester," Ruby admits apologetically. "Shall I go and get you some water? Oh… okay, okay. I've got you." She rubs her back as though she's a child, silent for a moment, waits. "It'll get better," she murmurs, as though she can read Alicia's thoughts. "It's not going to be like this all the way through."

"You don't know that." She closes her eyes, sways slightly, head spinning, feels Ruby pull her back into her arms. "I just feel so exhausted, all the time…"

"I think that's only to be expected. You've had a lot to deal with over the last few months, Alicia, a _lot_ , by anyone's standards. It's fine. It's normal. Anyone would be exhausted. And you've got a job that's stupidly full on at the best of times…"

"Exactly," she worries. "There's no way I'm going to cope with a new born by myself, let alone a new born with complex…"

"No one ever said anything about by yourself," Ruby corrects softly. "You've got us. We're hardly going to let you struggle by yourself, are we?"

"You shouldn't have to do that…"

"No, I don't have to. I'm offering." It's so typically Ruby; to the point, abrupt, yet wholeheartedly honest. "And Bea will too, I know she will. We care. About both of you. Anything you need, we're here. You have support, you don't have to do it all by yourself. Anything. It's only like being on call really, isn't it, any time you want me to get up with her, you only have to say. You'll be fine."

"You say that, as much as I can't imagine being any more sleep deprived than I already am, I can't imagine ever letting her out of my sight, either."

"There you go, then, you're a natural already. You're going to be fine, Alicia. Honestly. You'll be fine. We just need to get you through this bit. But I'm serious. The offer's there. Anything you need, you only have to tell me. And I know Bea will tell you the same."

"I am so going to have to knock your rent down."

"No, you don't. It's not babysitting, okay, it's just what friends do. It's all going to be fine, you'll see."

"I'm not even remotely ready to have a baby in seventeen weeks…"

"No, but you've got time. It's not really as complicated as people make out it is, not really. We can brave the shops at the weekend, and you do realise the moment you give her the go ahead, Bea's going to have bought you enough baby clothes to last you until you've got a pre-schooler? We just need to get her somewhere to sleep and a car seat, and then we can put a load of nappies and stuff on the weekly food shop and you're sorted. It'll be fine. You don't need to worry about any of that. I have no idea how to assemble a cot, but I can work that out, it can't be that hard. Anything else we can sort out later, as long as you've got the essential stuff."

"I don't deserve you. It's no loss really, in that respect," Alicia tries, attempting to convince herself more than Ruby. "Ethan's never exactly been the King of DIY he'd like everyone to believe…"" Her baby stirs within her, and her hand flies for a moment, intuitive, before habit kicks in and she stops herself, still so confused by it all.

"You alright?" Ruby worries. "You're not going to…?"

She shakes her head. "I'm fine. Just… she's just moving." It's still horribly awkward, still she doesn't know how she's supposed to be enjoying this.

Ruby pauses, contemplates, as though weighing up her options, trying to decide whether to proceed or not.

"Can I feel?" she asks cautiously. "Only if you don't mind…"

She almost snaps at her. She's become so used to snapping in defence when it comes to anything remotely concerned with this pregnancy that she almost does it automatically, doesn't even think. And then there's a moment in which suddenly it clicks, and she realises what Ruby is really trying to tell her. Because for all her abruptness, all her inability not to just say it exactly as it is the majority of the time, the last eighteen months of living together have taught Alicia that yes, in a lot of ways, that's Ruby exactly, but equally there's so much more to the way she sees the world than that. Ruby overthinks, in some ways sees things more deeply, hyperaware.

It must have crossed her mind that there's more to Ethan being gone, Ethan leaving her to endure all this by herself, than just the practical elements, even the more surface-level emotional ones.

Slowly, wordlessly, she takes Ruby's hand, positions, well and truly out of her depth. "I have no idea if you're actually going to be able to feel anything," she warns.

"You haven't tried this?"

Alicia shakes her head. "I… I can't really get my head around it, still," she admits, closes her eyes. "I just… I don't know. I don't want to think about it, I guess. Not her… I don't… I just mean… Ethan… Ethan not being here, and she's going to be so ill, when she's born… it's just easier to keep on pretending it isn't happening, I guess. It hurts less."

"No, I can understand that," Ruby agrees softly. "But it is happening, Alicia. It might help you feel better about it all if you start preparing, it might feel less daunting…"

"I don't even know where to start…"

"Hey, I told you, you really don't need that much for a new born. I'll take you. We don't have to buy anything straight away, you've still got plenty of time before…" she trails off, awkward, looks down.

Before her baby is going to be well enough to come home, even after she's born.

Alicia knows exactly what her friend means.

"I just want to jump ahead to having an actual baby," she tries to explain. "I just want to bypass this bit…"

"I know. I know, I can understand that. I know it's all been a bit rubbish so far, I know, but it's going to get better, now you know. You'll see. It's just going to take you a little while to process everything, and then it'll get better. It will. You might even enjoy it."

Alicia pulls a face. "I honestly do not know how anyone actually enjoys being pregnant, it's like being trapped into some sort of horr…" She trails off, suddenly aware that it's the first time she's ever used that word willingly.

Her baby kicks; gentle ripples, as though in protest, trying to reassure her mother that it's not all as bad as she feels it is, and Ruby's expression softens.

Silently, she takes Alicia's hand, places it gently where her own was a moment ago, rests her own on top.

It feels bizarre. She's done this before, lived with Robyn throughout her pregnancy with Charlotte, but it feels different, somehow, now it's her own.

She's an actual tiny human. She's not just a set of symptoms that have turned her world upside down, made her body feel as though it isn't her own any longer, not merely a tiny, sick baby she'll have in seventeen weeks' time.

She has her now. She's _hers_ , her baby, she's actually hers…

"Hey, hey, it's okay." Ruby pulls her into a hug before Alicia has quite realised she's crying again, happy, this time, heart fluttering, love unlike anything like she's ever known before. "It's okay. She's yours, Alicia," she says softly, as though she knows exactly what she's thinking. "You're allowed to let yourself be happy."

"She's going to be so ill…"

"I know. I know, Alicia, but she's going to be alright. You'll see. It won't be so scary once she's here. Surgery in the first week, right?"

Alicia nods.

"So a few days, a week at the most, and she'll be on the mend. It's going to be fine. You don't need to protect yourself anymore, you can get attached. Everything's going to be alright now. You're going to be an amazing mum."

"I don't even know where to start, Ruby…"

"You don't need to. You're brilliant with kids, you know you are. I've seen you in Paeds. Once you've got your own baby in your arms, you'll just know. It'll feel natural. It will. You are going to be the best mum your little girl could possibly ask for, I know you will. Come on." She wraps her arms around Alicia's shoulders, gently guides her to her feet. "We need to get going."

 **You may have worked this out by now depending on how quickly you saw this chapter I uploaded- yes, I am giving you a double upload today! I'm off east for a while (Miss Yekaterina's part of the world- ish) and won't be able to upload for the rest of this week, but you are truly the most wonderful group of readers, your feedback on the last chapter was exceptionally lovely and it is honestly a privilege to write for such brilliant supportive people, so I wanted to say thank you. Most of your reviews on the last chapter came through while I was in my last class of term, and I may have been just a little bit overwhelmed reading them all on the train home. Thank you, thank you, thank you, to 20BlueRoses, my four guests, Katie, lewisek18, and a special thank you to panicpeachpit, review spam is always a good thing! You are all wonderful.**

 **Are you still enjoying the flashback chapters? Please feel free to let me know either way, your feedback is always taken onboard.**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26**

Alicia decides she can't bear it any longer once they hit two hours after Chakra's bedtime, and they venture out into the cold to join the search.

They don't go straight to meet the police and the volunteer group at Holby Common, wander around the areas surrounding the hospital, her house, Bea's house, Ruby's house, Chakra's school, first, until they run out of options and drive over to her mam's, still waiting at the front window, just in case.

She doesn't know where Chakra would go. Perhaps that's ridiculous- she's her mother, after all- but this is her little girl who, while totally happy in her own company, doesn't like being by herself, still panics just a little when she loses Alicia in the supermarket and is mildly terrified of the dark, has only just been coaxed out of having the light left on out on the landing overnight.

Surely someone would have seen her, heard her, called the police and an ambulance, by now, were Chakra anywhere visible? Is it possible she's hiding out somewhere near home, waiting for Alicia to arrive back? They try that; not that there's any point, of course, the police have already tried that, but somehow, she has to see for herself, just to rule it out again.

Bea tries to suggest gently that she stays at home and gets some rest, but it's clear from her tone that she knows Alicia won't agree.

How can she even think about sleeping when her baby girl is still missing?

She must be so cold, she's going to be hypothermic by the time they find her, she's sure of it, if they even find her at all, what if someone has her, what if…

She can't bear this.

They collect her mam and they all drive over to Holby Common together. Alicia scrolls through her phone, all the texts she's ignored because it was clear they weren't important, didn't need an immediate reply and quite frankly she couldn't face it.

She really should reply to her dad, she decides. She's got a handful of texts from him and Martin; they've seen that Chakra is missing on the news, why didn't she tell them? Does Alicia think she might turn up at hers? (No, is the honest answer, Alicia doubts Chakra would even know the way to her dad and Martin's house thinking straight, let alone in the panic she must have been in when she ran away from school, and then there's their strained relationship, there's just no way Chakra would turn up at theirs, Alicia is sure of it.) Another text later on from her dad telling her to call if she needs him, if there's anything he can do, then one to say he's spoken to her mam and he and Martin have gone to join the volunteer search.

Alicia feels a little guilty at that. She should have texted, should never have allowed her relationship with her dad to grow so strained…

Then again, it isn't that simple.

Nothing seems simple anymore.

The police try to dissuade them, when they arrive, tell them it's late, that the search is already underway, area fenced off in the meantime.

If anything, they try to dissuade them even more when Ruby explains who they are.

"It's best you go home, at this point," the policeman in charge tells them gently, glances sympathetically at Alicia. "We won't be out here much longer…"

"What?" Alicia protests. "But you haven't found her yet…"

"It's after eleven now," the policeman explains gently. "We've almost covered the Common, we'll be calling off the search for tonight once we're finished here, review the situation in the morning. We'll put out another appeal for information, and I think you've already been told we'll be speaking to the other children in Chakra's class?"

Alicia nods weakly.

"There's not a lot more we can do tonight, Alicia. I'm sorry. We've had no new leads, we're running out of options…"

"So you're just going to give up on her?" Alicia demands desperately. "You're just going to give up on her and look for a… for a… you know what I mean, in the morning?"

She can't bring herself to say it.

"No one's saying that, Alicia. We're just running out of options. We'll be reviewing the remaining CCTV across Holby overnight…"

Alicia closes her eyes, switches off.

She can't listen to any more.

They're allowed through, in the end. The police on duty seem to realise that they have no hope of persuading Alicia to go home, not really, take her, Bea, Ruby and her mam through to join the nearest search party, armed with multiple umbrellas.

It's freezing. It's pouring with rain and it's freezing, mud soaking through her suede boots that are probably the least appropriate footwear she owns for trekking through Holby Common in this weather, but common sense left her the moment Mrs Beauchamp told her Chakra was missing and at no point when they dropped by her house earlier, just in case, did it occur to her that perhaps it would be sensible to change her shoes before venturing out onto the common.

She feels as though she deserves it, somehow, as they follow the police across the common. Chakra will be soaked, if she's out here somewhere, Chakra will be frozen, if she's even still conscious…

The police think her little girl could be out here, suffering, could have been out here for hours, and this is all her fault.

It's only fair that she should suffer too.

It's close to eleven now… she normally has Chakra in bed by seven thirty, eight at the absolute latest, she must be so tired…

"Scooby!" Her dad rushes over to greet them, pulls her into a hug she isn't prepared for, doesn't have the energy for and yet Alicia doesn't have it in her to avoid him either, allows herself to be held tightly as though she's a child again. "You should have told us, darling, we would have helped, we could have been looking for her sooner…" Too late, she notices Martin lurking behind him, the strange mix of hurt and exasperation on her mam's face.

"… But you told your mother, presumably," her dad finishes.

"Oh, don't start on her, Howard," her mam warns. "That isn't fair. I see more of Chakra in a week than you have in the last year, and you know it, the poor girl doesn't even…"

"I'm her granddad, Jackie, it's not a competition! You know the only reason you can be there whenever Alicia needs you is because you're the one who came out the divorce settlement with…"

"Will you stop?" Alicia pleads, exhausted, drained, panicked, no energy left for this.

"Look, her school told me, if you must know, they were working through the emergency contacts. I don't even need to ask to know you won't be on there, all the good you've ever been!"

"I've offered to have Chakra evenings and weekends, you know I have!"

"Yes, you and Martin and all! You can't offer to take her and then hand her over to someone else, Howard, how is Alicia ever supposed to trust you to look after Chakra if every time you offer you threaten to leave her with Martin?"

"Oh, come on, Jackie, Martin's not exactly a stranger! Alicia's only known him half her life…"

"Yes, and for ten years of that he was screwing her…"

"Will you both, please, just give it a rest?"

Finally, they stop laying into each other, perhaps just as surprised at Ruby's outburst as Alicia, as Ruby herself seems to be, judging by the look of slight shock and confusion in her eyes.

"I just… this isn't really helping, is it?" Ruby stammers. "Arguing about this isn't going to help find Chakra, and I think what Alicia really needs right now is your support. You can always argue about this later, if you really must, but now really isn't the moment for it. And… well, if we stay here too long we're going to be left behind." She gestures to the cluster of torches, dark shadows, slowly beginning to disappear into the trees.

"No, no… you're right, of course you're right," Howard admits guiltily. "You're right. I'm sorry, Scooby." He hugs her again gently, though Alicia doesn't miss the angry looks exchanged between her parents when they think she isn't looking.

"I just want to find her," she says quietly, desperate to put a stop to her parents' bickering. "I can't do this, I just need her back, so if you two can't be civil with each other…"

"I know, Alicia, I know, I'm sorry, darling. We can be. Can't we?" Jackie glares at Howard, dares him to challenge her.

"Of course we can," Howard agrees hurriedly. "We'll find her, Alicia. She'll be alright. You'll see."

Alicia doesn't have it in her to snap at him that he can't possibly know that, that at no point in her childhood were he and her mother stupid and irresponsible enough to lose her for longer than five minutes in anywhere worse than the Eldon Square shopping centre, how can he know everything is going to be alright? How does he know that this isn't it, that Chakra isn't gone and she's never going to see her again, that this might be how everything ends?

She can't do this. She just can't.

They catch up with the rest of the search party, wander through the common led by Charlie and Duffy and a compass that looks about a hundred years old. Alicia screams Chakra's name until her voice is hoarse, nothing but her own voice echoing back at her. They search through the bushes, shine torches, but nothing, no signs of life save for the odd badger, occasional rustling up above them that turns out to be an owl of some description every time.

Chakra isn't here. Perhaps one of the other search parties have found her, perhaps they just haven't had time to alert them yet, but somehow, Alicia is almost certain that Chakra isn't here.

This was the only lead the police had… shit, shit…

She can't bear to lose her like this.

Chakra could be out of Holby by now, could have been picked up by someone, taken away against their will, or she could be being held somewhere, minutes away but somewhere they'll never find her, it could be the child protection case she dealt with just a couple of months ago all over again…

She's retching again before she can stop herself, doubled over, suddenly lightheaded.

Has she eaten at all since breakfast?

Her mam wraps her arms around her silently, holds her upright, while someone else's hands- Bea's, maybe, Alicia isn't sure- hold back her hair.

She's exhausted. She's exhausted, and she feels terrible, and she just wants to sleep, but how can she possibly do that all the while Chakra is still missing?

"I think we're almost back now," Ruby says softly. "Another five minutes and we'll be back, I think Charlie said."

Alicia doesn't ask what happens after that.

She doesn't want to know.

She allows herself to be led over to a police marquee, blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her coat isn't as waterproof as she thought, Alicia realises now; she's soaked through, shivering violently.

Except it isn't a police marquee at all, it dawns on her slowly. It's dark… dark green, maybe, it's the middle of the night in late March and difficult to tell, but the woman wrapping her in blankets is elderly, dressed in a long, patterned skirt and a headscarf, paired with wellies and an anorak, almost certainly Eastern European.

"I friend of Yekaterina," she offers, broken English, strong Russian accent- Belarusian? Is it the same thing, Alicia wonders. Chakra would know. "I come to help. You would like tea?"

She can't quite find the words to answer.

"That would be great, wouldn't it, Alicia? Thank you," her mam covers for her, tries to smile and doesn't quite succeed. "Black, two sugars."

There's a heavy feeling of dread in her chest unlike anything she's ever felt before, panic rising within her all over again.

"Alicia?" One of the police officers has appeared now, solemn, careful. "Alicia, we're going to call off the search for tonight," he explains gently. "There's nothing more we can do tonight. We've completed a full search of the common, Chakra definitely isn't here. I think my colleague explained to you, we'll be reviewing the rest of the CCTV overnight, we'll let you know as soon as we have anything to report. The best thing for you to do now is go home, try to get some rest. Okay? I know it's hard."

'Hard' has to be the understatement of the century.

It's gone midnight by the time they drop her mam back home, promise to update her in the morning.

"I can come over, in a bit," Jackie offers. "I can grab some clean clothes and I can come over, it's not a problem."

Amazingly, she manages to hold her off, promises to call her.

She just wants to be alone tonight. All she wants is to be alone, to grieve by herself, she doesn't want anyone fussing around her, trying to make her feel better, as she knows only too well her mam will.

This is her fault, all of it.

She doesn't deserve anyone's sympathy.

Bea climbs out of Ruby's car with her when they pull up outside her house.

"I've still got those clothes I left at yours last time in the spare bedroom, right?" She asks Alicia gently, guides her up the front path. "I'm going to stay over with you tonight. Okay? You don't have to have anything to do with me if you don't want to, you can shut me in the spare room and I'll leave you in peace," she covers quickly, before Alicia has a chance to protest. "That's fine. I don't care. But I'm not leaving you here by yourself, lovely. You shouldn't be by yourself. You go and shower, get warm," she says, turning off the burglar alarm, bolting the front door. "Do you want anything?"

Alicia shakes her head, numb, broken.

"Okay. Okay, you go first, let me know when the shower's free."

She emerges from the shower a short while later, having scolded herself with hot water, skin tinged pink, not entirely sure why she thought she could scrub away all her faults, all her failings, every time she's proven she's a terrible mother, with a sponge and half a bottle of shower gel. She dries her hair, changes, goes through the motions, at a total loss as to what to do now.

She'd usually have taken Chakra up to bed a couple of hours or so before going up herself, assuming she was working a day shift the next day, she'd look in on her briefly before shutting her bedroom door, and perhaps Chakra is far too old for her to still be doing that, she doesn't know, but she's her only child and that's what she'd do, and she can't do that, there's no point…

Slowly, almost fearfully, she pushes open the door to Chakra's bedroom, pads across the carpet, turns on the nightlight her daughter has grown out of now, more or less a glorified bedside table lamp these days. Chakra has decided she wants a Himalayan salt lamp to replace it for her birthday, of all things, for her _eighth_ birthday, because apparently heart-shaped and lilac is too babyish. God knows how Chakra even knows what one of those is; Alicia has been holding Kerry responsible for that one. She's been meaning to hunt one down on Amazon, you must be able to buy them on Amazon, surely…

Does she even need one now? Shit…

Alicia curls up under the duvet Chakra hasn't slept under for more than a week now, still smells of her, just a little. She untangles Chakra's elephant from the covers, remembers too late that her mam offered to wash it the other night, when she had Chakra, that it will smell of washing powder, nothing like her at all.

She clutches it to her chest tightly, as her daughter would; somehow in that moment it feels like the last little piece of her she has left.

"Chakra," she whispers, well and truly lost the plot, no idea if she's talking to herself or sending some sort of plea out into the universe. "Chakra, Chakra…"

It's only as the door opens, gentle footsteps and then Bea is pulling her into a tight hug, rubbing her shoulders, reminding her to breathe, that Alicia realises she's dissolved into tears again.

They stay there, that night. They curl up together in Chakra's single bed, squashed, precarious, but anything is better than being alone and Bea seems to sense that Alicia isn't going to be leaving Chakra's room without a fight.

She doesn't sleep much; doubts Bea manages to drift off properly either. A thousand thoughts are racing through her mind, all of them coming back to her daughter, the time she accidentally sent her to school without her PE kit, when she forgot to pick her up from gym, lost her favourite scarf, all the times she's been called into work for a major incident and had to dump her at her mam's, or with Duffy, one of Elle's kids, whoever happened to be available, all the times she was too tired after work to cook her a proper meal, all the small failings that doesn't seem all that terrible in isolation but now that she's lost her, now she might never see her again…

Where is she? Where is she, is there anywhere they haven't thought to look? She has to be somewhere, she has to be, out in the cold somewhere, she can't have been… no, no that wouldn't happen, surely…

Chakra…

They give up on sleep at five in the morning, wander downstairs at a loss. Bea presses a glass of water into her hands, follows it with a mug of ultra-strong coffee that helps her regain the faintest grip on reality, if nothing else.

They sit in the living room for god only knows how long, silent, arms around each other, until the sun begins to rise and Bea pulls a plastic medieval knight, handful of Lego, a hairnet and two pairs of small, pink socks out from the back of the sofa, and Alicia dissolves into tears again.

There's a sudden wailing from upstairs, shrill, demanding, and Alicia can't place it at first.

"I think that's your alarm," Bea realises, springs up from the sofa. "I'll go and turn it off, I'll be right back."

She should be getting up for work now, she should be waking Chakra in half an hour or so, making her breakfast, brushing out her hair, raiding the fridge for leftover vegetables for the…

Chakra's rabbits… shit…

She practically sprints out into the garden to check on Morgana and Guinevere, breathes a massive sigh of relief when she realises they're both alive, alert, noses twitching, shivering a little in the cold.

Robyn did mention something about bringing them in overnight in cold weather, she should have remembered, they never should have been left outside last night, let alone without food and fresh water…

"I'm sorry," Alicia whispers. "You poor things, you must be so annoyed with me, mustn't you, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry…"

Yet another thing to add to her list of failings.

She manages to catch them both, a couple of nips later (mostly Morgana; how does Chakra manage to get them both to cooperate so effortlessly?) brings them indoors in the carry case, bribes them with a handful of rabbit treats along with their usual breakfast because she's well aware she's in their bad books, if rabbits are even intelligent enough to have bad books. She tries to pet them in apology and perhaps it's just her imagination, guilty conscience, but Morgana and Guinevere seem completely unimpressed, as though fully aware that she's an imposter, older, taller lookalike but definitely not _their_ human, all wrong.

Chakra isn't going to be best pleased with her when she finds out in all the commotion yesterday, she forgot to feed her rabbits.

Is Chakra ever going to know?

Alicia has set up the rabbit hutch at the end of the kitchen by the time Bea emerges from the bathroom, placed them back inside and the entire house is probably going to stink of rabbit by the time she gets home tonight, whenever she goes get home because god only knows, but the poor things were probably freezing and famished by the time she remembered them, judging by the speed at which they consume her peace offering.

She can't risk killing off Chakra's rabbits on top of everything else.

She can't break Chakra's little heart like that, a house that stinks of rabbit is surely a reasonable trade-off, when put like that.

What if she never gets her back?

She has to get her back, she has to…

Chakra has been her entire world for eight years now; that's the simple truth of it. She's had no one else, since Ethan left, no one else to devote herself to completely.

That's not to say that her entire life has been with Chakra, because it hasn't, not in the sightest. Since she had Chakra she's managed to pull off completion of her emergency medicine training, albeit on a reduced timetable, effectively part time, until Chakra started school, gained the relevant experience in paediatrics proper, passed her exams, worked her way up to consultant finally a couple of months ago and yes, she would have gotten there sooner if she hadn't decided to specialise so particularly, if she hadn't had a baby in the middle of it all, been left to raise her by herself, but she wouldn't change Chakra for the world.

She's even managed to maintain her social life alongside single parenthood, keep up the running she did before Chakra and the yoga Ruby talked her into while pregnant that turned out to be the greatest release. But her entire world has always revolved around Chakra from the moment she first held her in her arms, motherhood having turned out to be everything she had ever wanted and just not quite realised before.

Chakra saved her, really. She was a mess when Ethan left, Alicia knows she was, only managed to pull herself together, slowly but surely, after Chakra's negative Huntington's results came through, as it had gradually begun to sink in that she was going to have a tiny, poorly baby who needed her, needed her to survive the turmoil of losing Ethan like she did. Chakra gave her a purpose again, a reason to carry on, Chakra turned her life upside down in the best possible way, gave her unconditional love unlike anything she had ever known was possible, healed her…

Chakra needed her, and she let her down well and truly.

She's sobbing hysterically again before she can stop herself.

"Hey, hey, it's okay." Bea holds her close, pulls her in to rest her head against her shoulder, strokes her hair as though she's a child. "I know, lovely, I know…"

"I failed her, Bea," she whispers. "I knew she was being bullied at that school, I knew…"

"And you have done everything possible to try to put a stop to it," Bea tells her softly. "You have, Alicia. I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but you have. You really have. This is _not_ your fault, sweetheart. You mustn't blame yourself."

"It's so cold out there, Bea," she sobs, distraught. "She's going to be so cold, if she's out there somewhere…"

She can't do this. She just can't.

Somehow, they struggle through until just after ten, when Theresa arrives.

"I've just come from Chakra's school," she explains gently, smiling gratefully at Bea's offered cup of tea; Alicia can't even remember the three of them entering the living room, let alone Bea offering to make cups of tea.

Should Bea be in work today? No… no, she was going to have Chakra today, if school was a disaster, she must be off today…

She hasn't even bothered phoning into work. Did Bea do that for her? Or did Mrs Beuachamp say something to her last night, at the volunteer search, about not coming into work today? She can't remember.

"So my colleagues and I spoke to each of the children in Chakra's class again this morning, individually," Theresa explains, pulling Alicia back to reality. "Nothing to suggest where Chakra might be, I'm afraid, but I have to ask. Her hair, do you think it's possible Chakra did that herself?"

The question is so unexpected, it takes Alicia completely by surprise. "What? No, no, she wouldn't, there's just no way…"

"Not even if she was distressed? You don't think she might have, as a cry for help?"

Alicia shakes her head, adamant. "Look, she has hair practically down to her waist, I've been trying to persuade her to have it cut for months because it's getting a bit unmanageable, and she won't have it at all, she won't even entertain the idea of having a couple of inches cut off. She'll have it trimmed every few months, but that's it. There's absolutely no way she's cut it herself, let alone so much just off one side, that's honestly her worst nightmare…"

"Okay," Theresa says gently. "Okay. It's just that one of the other children in Chakra's class has told us that they saw Chakra do it herself…"

She's raging again, furious at the mere suggestion, all of a sudden knows exactly who's responsible. "Let me guess." Her voice is shaking with anger. "Was it Sophia, by any chance? Because that girl has been picking on Chakra for months, there's been endless mean comments, nothing Chakra's told me has ever been severe enough to explain why she's so afraid of school but there's no doubt Sophia enjoys teasing her, just in the last month before I stopped sending her into school she's had hair comments from Sophia, you know what it's like, kids can be horrible about ginger hair, she's had a whole load of them in her class making fun of her name, telling her she's weird, that she's stupid, that she can't play with them, distracting her all the time and then Chakra gets the blame for it, laughing behind her back and not telling her why, making fun of her because she's alone in the playground and Sophia's always been the ringleader according to Chakra, always. And I know none of that sounds like a huge deal, I do, but when you're seven… school never seem to witness any of this, apparently Sophia's usually a total angel child and they think Chakra's being overly sensitive, but that's not her, that's just not her at all, or it wasn't until we moved back to Holby and she started at that school…"

"Okay," Theresa says softly. "Okay. So you're saying you think it was Sophia who cut her hair? That's a big step up from what you've just described…"

She's not listening. It's the same thing all over again, no one ever listens…

"And Chakra's never been able to explain to anyone what it is about school that's so terrible," she argues. "Look, it may not have been Sophia at all. That's not what I'm saying. How could I possibly know for definite, I wasn't there, I don't know half as much about what goes on in that place as I would like because I can't ever get Chakra to talk to me about it. But she did _not_ do that herself, I am telling you, there's just no way she'd do that herself. One of those kids has done it, she wouldn't do that to herself… Look, I know this doesn't really matter right now, I know it doesn't bring her back. But Chakra hasn't done that herself, I know she hasn't, one of the other kids has done it to her… You don't believe me, do you?"

"I do, Alicia. I do, I believe you. My colleague is still at Chakra's school, I'm going to call him now and let him know what you've just told me, okay? We've got police continuing to go door to door in the surrounding area today. We're going to do everything we can."

There's something that's changed in Theresa's tone today, Alicia realises. Maybe it's her imagination, her own mental state as of this morning clouding her judgement, but Theresa seems different today.

It's been almost twenty four hours now, since Chakra went missing. Almost twenty four hours and it was freezing overnight, she's so little, she's underweight, she's alone…

She hasn't even heard from Ethan this morning. He probably hates her now, despises her for losing their daughter and Alicia can't blame him, no wonder he's keeping his distance, he doesn't want to speak to her, he's going to disappear out of her life again as though he was never there at all…

She sobs in Bea's arms, broken, as Theresa walks back down the path towards the police car, Chakra's sparkly wellies on the doorstep, abandoned, forgotten, insides probably soaked by now.

What if she never gets her back?

 **I hope this one wasn't too traumatic! I am really, really hoping this won't be your Christmas update, I am aiming to get you another chapter by Christmas Eve, but it is going to be a bit of a stretch, and I'm going to have to handwrite it which doesn't help! But I will do my best to get you another chapter before Christmas. (And your reviews always make me write faster, so if you do want another chapter, you know what to do... ;) )**

 **One of you asked in the reviews from the last chapter if I was planning to write another chapter similar to chapter 17- the Bea and Chakra in NICU one. The answer is yes, but it's slightly complicated.**

 **Call me crazy, but I have started (very provisionally!) planning a sequel- I've got the basic framework of a plot and I picked the music to plan to this week- you guys know how I work by now. If I write that sequel, I'm going to go with the same structure as this one, with the flashback chapters. I do have plans to write some flashback chapters set after Chakra's birth, but I've been holding off while I plan which ones I would put in this story, and which ones I would put in the sequel, if I wrote it. The lack of Atoms updates is essentially the same problem- if you haven't realised already, they're supposed to be set in the same universe.**

 **So if you're still with me, the question is, would you like a sequel once I've finished this one? And do you have any requests for flashback chapters? I am definitely up for writing a sequel if it's something you guys would like to read.**

 **I hope you all have a wonderful week, and please do let me know what you think of these chapters, and the sequel situation!**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27**

"Alicia, you need to try and eat something," Bea tries carefully. "You've barely eaten since yesterday morning… I know, I know," she sighs gently. "But starving yourself isn't going to help, is it? You're no good to Chakra like this, you know you're not."

"We don't even know if she's… if I'm going to… if…"

She can't say it.

The possibility seems to be becoming more and more painfully likely now, the more time passes, and still Alicia can't say it, can't even bear to think about it, to consider it as a possibility, even though she can't quite deny how bad things are looking, not anymore.

How is she going to cope, should that awful possibility become reality?

Alicia doesn't know if she could.

"You can't think like that, lovely. There's no point doing that to yourself. The police are re-interviewing everyone along York Road…"

"And that gave them next to nothing yesterday!" Alicia protests. "We don't even know for sure if that was Chakra at all…"

"But we don't know for definite that it wasn't, either," Bea insists, trying to reassure her. "I know it's easier said than done, I know, but there's no point assuming the worst, not when the police…"

"It's been twenty-four hours, Bea!" Alicia snaps, regretting it the moment the words have left her. "Sorry. Sorry, I just…"

"Hey, it's okay. I know, I know." Bea squeezes her hand, nothing else she can say. "I'm going to make you… oh, I don't know, what time is it? Late breakfast, I guess. Just try, okay? It doesn't matter if you can't, I just think you should try."

Alicia stares at her phone screen once Bea has disappeared into the kitchen (the advantage of Bea having lived with her as long as she did is that for the most part, even after renting out the house and a move to Newcastle and back again, she still knows where everything is). She ignores all the messages she really should reply to, all the ones she hasn't even bothered to read because it's clear they aren't important, and people telling her they're thinking of her, as kind as it is, just seems so trivial all the while Chakra is missing.

There's nothing from Ethan. Nothing at all, nothing since yesterday, since she told him.

Does he hate her?

Alicia couldn't blame him if he did. She's lost their daughter; their seven-year-old daughter, this is on her… if they never get her back, if Ethan never gets the chance to know his own daughter properly, it will be all her fault…

She just wants him here. Perhaps that's selfish of her. Ethan shouldn't have to suffer through this too; he's suffering anyway, of course, wherever he is, knowing his daughter is missing, but a part of Alicia is glad he isn't here, doesn't have to deal with the police, the atmosphere here, perhaps she's deluded but maybe, just maybe, away from Holby he's sheltered, just a little. But selfishly, she wants him here for her sake, just wants him with her.

She's wanted him here with her all along, ever since the day he left, but never has she wanted him here quite so desperately.

She should have asked him to come back to Holby with them, before they left on Sunday.

She almost did. She thought about it, she really did, even planned how she might approach it, try to persuade him, but in the end, she bottled out, too afraid of rejection, of where they might stand, how they could proceed from here, if he said no.

Too afraid of him realising the extent of her deception, of their daughter's problems, because it would have been impossible to hide it all from him any longer had he come home with them, this week of all weeks.

She should have just told him. She should have just told him the truth and gotten it over with, should have got him back to Holby even if she had to drag him kicking and screaming, he should have been here, he should have had the chance to build a proper relationship with Chakra, now it might be too late, now he might never…

She can't do this.

He must hate her.

He must hate her for what she's done, that's the only explanation for his silence…

She's calling his phone on the landline before she's allowed herself to think this through properly, impulsive, stupid, probably, only about to inflict even more pain upon herself, but she has to know.

She wouldn't blame him if he hates her, she's lost their already vulnerable daughter, for god's sake.

But she has to know. She has to know if she's lost him too, she doesn't think she could bear it, not again, not on top of everything else…

Chakra…

"Alicia?" Ethan asks urgently, voice laced with fear and concern, as the call connects.

There's no anger.

It's clear he's distressed, clear the not knowing, the worry, has been eating him alive, but there's no anger in his voice.

Her relief in that moment is so overwhelming, she's sobbing loudly, out of control, before she can manage to speak.

Maybe he doesn't hate her after all, maybe he doesn't hate her…

"Alicia? Alicia, what is it?" Ethan worries. "Alicia? Have they… is…"

"No," Alicia manages, pulls herself together a little. "No, no, there's nothing, no news, nothing… I'm sorry," she sobs, broken, feels in that moment that she owes him nothing but apologies, because even if he has forgiven her, she'll never forgive herself for this. "I'm sorry, this is all my fault, I'm sorry, I should have done more, I should have protected her…"

"Alicia…"

"I should never have sent her back to that school, I should have fought harder with CAMHS, I knew she was going to struggle, I knew, and I just sent her back in there and trusted them to look after her, I was so stupid, it's all my fault…"

"Alicia! Alicia, listen," Ethan pleads. "This is _not_ your fault, darling. Don't you ever think that."

"But I could have lost her, Ethan… I could have lost her, if we never get her back it'll be because of me, I'm the one who sent her back in yesterday even though I knew…"

"No, you didn't, Alicia. You didn't know they were going to lose her, did you? You didn't leave the gate open, you couldn't have known that. You did the right thing, darling, if CAMHS told you to send her back in then you did the right thing…"

"I knew, though, Ethan. I knew she wasn't ready, I knew CAMHS had got it all wrong with her but if I didn't at least show I was trying to cooperate with them I thought it was only going to hurt her, I need them to help her, not abandon her, but I knew, I knew she was going to find it all too distressing and I made her go anyway…"

"But it's not as simple as just not sending her to school, right? I'm not… well, I'm not exactly parent of the year and clued up on all this stuff, we both know that, but they start threatening with fines and all sorts if you just don't send your child to school, right? You did the right thing, Alicia, you had to try. You couldn't have known her school were going to be so… so… I don't even know what to call it, so horrifically negligent. You didn't cause this, Alicia. You really didn't, you have to believe that. What… whatever happens, this is _not_ your fault."

"I thought you were going to hate me…"

"Hey, I could never hate you," Ethan insists gently. "Not for this. None of this is your fault, darling, none of it. You didn't do this." He pauses, voice laced with emotion. "So nothing from the police, then?"

"No," Alicia whispers. "No, nothing. They searched Holby Common last night, they had a report, I think, but nothing, I don't think she was ever there at all. But it was so cold, Ethan, last night, it was so cold here… I don't think they really know where to start, they're just trying to hide it… But they… they found… Her teacher found… one of the other kids has cut her hair, she found it in the bin, in the classroom, they've just cut an inch or so off the end but that's assault, isn't it, I know they're only kids but that's technically assault, year 3 is old enough to know better than that, and she must have been so upset, Ethan, it must have been right before she ran for it and no one noticed, for god's sake, her teacher didn't even notice…"

There's silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, nothing but silence.

"One of the other kids…" Ethan trails off, voice laced with utter rage and Alicia understands that only too well, understands because that's exactly how she felt when first confronted with this by the police, that feeling of utter rage that anyone could do that to her daughter unnoticed, in a school, for god's sake, that anyone could dare. "They… they actually cut it, presumably she didn't cooperate…"

"There's no way she would have let them, even if she wasn't completely socially isolated in that classroom, I've been trying to get her to agree to cut it shorter for months but she's been determinedly channelling her inner Celtic warrior princess, there's just no way… no one ever listens, the police asked me if she would have done it herself this morning and there's no way, she wouldn't have, but apparently one of the other kids has told them that, and I bet you it's the girl who's been making all sorts of horrid comments, I bet it is, they won't tell me…"

Her mobile rings loudly on the cabinet across the room, and Bea rushes in through the dining room, picks it up, meets Alicia's eyes questioningly.

Alicia nods, curls up, closes her eyes, back to Ethan. "Sorry," she whispers. "Sorry, I should have broken that to you more gently, I just…"

Bea stands in front of her, holds out Alicia's mobile to her, a strange expression on her face.

"I've got to go," Alicia says hurriedly. "I've got to go… I'll… I'll call you back." She hangs up, discards the phone, glances up at Bea fearfully. "Who is it?"

Bea shakes her head, presses the phone into Alicia's hands. "You need to take it. Okay? Just trust me." She sits down beside her on the sofa, rubs her back soothingly.

Hands shaking, she raises the phone, heart in her mouth. "Hello?"

"Alicia? Alicia, it's Dylan. I've found your daughter."

Those words are so unexpected that she can't quite process them, not at first.

"What?" Alicia whispers.

Her voice doesn't quite sound like her own, strained, as though she's afraid to believe it, just in case.

"I've found your daughter," Dylan repeats. "Or rather, Dervla did. She ran off yesterday, you see, when I was walking her before work… anyway, that isn't important, my battery's about to die. I've just found them together, they were curled up in the undergrowth in St Ann's Woods, you know the one by the canal? She went absolutely berserk when she heard me coming- Dervla, I mean, and I couldn't work out why she didn't just come running over to me at first, then I realised she was lying in the bushes with Chakra. I think she was trying to walk to Holby ED, I'm not sure, she's a bit confused, how she ended up out here I don't know, it's a bit of a detour, isn't it…"

Relief floods through her like nothing else she's ever known. "But she's… she's okay… she's conscious?"

"Well, she's hypothermic, pulse is slow and like I said, she's a bit confused, but she's alright. She managed to tell me your mobile number. I'm going to run her down to the ED now, it's going to be faster than waiting for an ambulance. We shouldn't be more than five minutes or so. Are you over there now?"

"No… no, I… I'm at home…"

"Alright. Alright, well, I'm going to get her to the ED, we'll see you soon. I'd bring her some dry clothes, if I were you." There's a faint rustling at the end of the phone. "Look, we're back to the car, Alicia, I'm going to go."

"Can I speak to her?"

"Chakra, shall I give you the phone so you can speak to your mum? No? She's worried you're going to be angry with her," Dylan explains apologetically.

"Well, tell her I'm not, then!" Alicia pleads. "Of course I'm not angry with her, tell her…"

The line goes dead.

Bea drives them over to the ED in Alicia's car; Alicia doesn't bother protesting, knows better, feels too panicked to drive anyway. She races upstairs in a panic, throws clean clothes, hairbrush, Chakra's elephant, the fluffy onesie thing her mam bought for Christmas that's supposed to look like a unicorn (and Chakra's never liked it much, but at least it's warm) into a bag, heart pounding, frantic.

It's a fifteen-minute drive, if that, but it feels like a lifetime.

Her mind is racing. Hypothermia… remove wet clothes, would Dylan have thought to do that first, before he drove over to the ED? Of course he would, he's a consultant… somehow she can't trust anyone else with her daughter, it should be her there, it should be her… warmed IV fluids, monitoring for pneumonia… Chakra has been out there all night, she must be freezing… humidified oxygen… shit… shit…

She thinks she's going to be angry with her. Chakra thinks she's going to be angry with her, has she not come home, hidden away in the woods because she was afraid Alicia was going to be angry with her…

She just wants her back, she could never be angry with her for this, Chakra should be angry with _her_ , if anything…

Chakra…

"Alicia." Dylan is waiting for them as they enter in through the staff entrance. "Alicia, I'm going to take you through now, alright, come with me…"

"How is she?" Her voice is shaking, panicked, vision a little blurred. "Is she…?"

"She's alright. She's alright, she's in Resus 3, I'm going to take you through. It looks worse than it is, alright, we've put her on oxygen but it's airway rewarming, predominantly, her pulse is improving…"

"But she's not hurt?"

She can't breathe, she can't breathe…

"Elle's doing secondary survey now, but she seems alright. She wasn't happy about being examined at first, well, she got very upset, but she's cooperating now…"

"GCS?"

"Eleven, when I got her in. She's up to twelve now..."

"Shit…"

"She's okay, Alicia. Honestly, she's okay. Her pulse was weak, when we got here, she went downhill briefly for a while but her temperature's up to thirty-two now, her SATs have improved dramatically. She'll be fine." Dylan pauses for a moment in the corridor. "I had some old clothes in the boot but she point-blank refused to let me help her change, she was a bit freaked out, I think, she's confused, I turned around, I left her to it, it was that or leave her soaking, so if she tells you I told her to take her clothes off…"

"As if I'm going to be worried about that, Dylan, you're a doctor, she's hypothermic..."

"Alright. Alright, I thought it was best to tell you. Oh, and I've got this for you." Dylan rummages in his coat pocket for a moment, holds out something small, white, oddly shaped, tips it onto Alicia's palm. "I've told her the tooth fairy definitely does exist, she just doesn't do woodland deliveries."

It's her first one. All of a sudden, Alicia seems to be only capable of thinking in slow motion, a rapid shift from just a few moments ago. It's the first tooth Chakra's lost, doesn't matter, really, in the general scheme of things, but somehow it feels enormous, one of those tiny firsts that she'll never get back…

She's shaking, as she pushes open the doors into Resus 3, Bea following behind her, hand resting gently on the small of her back.

Her daughter lies across a hospital bed, pale, still, oxygen mask pressed over her face, heated blanket wrapped around her.

She looks so, so tiny.

Elle, Robyn and Mrs Beauchamp look up at her from beside her daughter, almost a little apprehensive.

"Is she…"

"She's alright," Elle says gently, gestures to the chair positioned to one side of the hospital bed, beckons. "She's alright. The oxygen's not going to be for too much longer, if she keeps doing as well as she is, we're going to transfer her down to Paeds as soon as she's off it."

Alicia nods, suddenly horribly nervous and no idea why. "Chakra?" she calls gently. "Chakra?"

Chakra blinks sleepily.

"It's alright, sweetheart, it's alright." She strokes her daughter's hair, hastily towel-dried, tangled, suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to hug her tightly, never let go and she can't, not while she's like this. "Chakra? I'm here now, Chakra, I'm here now, and I'm not angry, I promise I'm not angry. I thought I'd lost you," she whispers, tears of relief. "I thought I'd lost you, I don't know what I'd have done if I'd lost you…"

Chakra opens her eyes slowly, blinks up at her, drained, incomprehensible sounds from behind the oxygen mask.

"Hey, don't try and speak, Chakka, it's alright. It's alright, we're going to take that off you in a bit. You're alright. Everything's going to get better now, you'll see. You don't have to worry about anything. I love you so much." She reaches her hand under the heated blanket, finds Chakra's, cannula taped down.

She's so little, she shouldn't be going through this…

She has so many questions, in that moment. There's a whole twenty-four hours of her daughter's life that none of them know anything about, completely unaccounted for, twenty-four hours unaccounted for, and in that moment, Alicia has to fight back the urge to bombard her with questions, to know everything, as though somehow if she knows she can take away all the distress Chakra must have felt.

But Chakra is in no fit state to answer her, and to bombard her with questions would only upset her.

Rationally, Alicia knows that.

What she needs isn't relevant, not just yet; all that matters is that Chakra needs her more.

"I love you so much, sweetheart, I always will, okay? I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, I know I let you down but that's never going to happen again. I missed you so much. I missed you so, so much, Chakra, don't you ever do that to me again."

She glances across at her daughter's sats, reassured- for now, at least. "I've fed your rabbits," she tells Chakra gently, decides there's no need to admit she left them to stave last night. "I've fed your rabbits, I've brought them indoors, I thought they looked a bit cold in the garden. You must have been freezing... It's alright now, sweetheart. You're going to start feeling better soon, you'll see. Everything's okay now. Dylan gave me your tooth, do you remember? You don't? I think you must have given it to him when he found you. So we'll have to put it under your pillow tonight and see if we get a visit from the tooth fairy, won't we?" _And Mammy will have to find out what the going rate is nowadays_ , she murmurs under her breath. "I think Dylan's right, she probably doesn't do woodland deliveries. I think you have to be a special woodland fairy to cope with long haul flights and lots of luggage."

Alicia grips Chakra's hand a little tighter, strokes gently with her thumb, and that's when she feels it.

"You've bandaged her knuckles…"

"She's got some nasty cuts across the backs of her hands," Elle tells her gently, tone even.

She knows, Alicia realises. It's so clear from the look in her eyes, she knows.

"Okay," she says quietly. "Okay."

She doesn't know what to do.

Chakra needs her, Chakra needs her to do something to help her urgently, and Alicia doesn't know what to do.

She holds her daughter's hand tightly, squeezes, watches every rise and fall of her chest for a while after that. How long it is, exactly, Alicia isn't sure; time doesn't seem to matter anymore. Chakra closes her eyes, sleepy, breathing slowly improving, and Alicia manages a one-handed message to Ethan, can't bring herself to let go of Chakra's hand, even for a second.

 _She's safe_ , she types, so much she wants to say but now isn't the time, not all the while Chakra needs her. _Will call when I can_.

She gratefully accepts Bea's offer of calling everyone else to tell them, rests her head down beside Chakra's, drapes her free arm over her carefully and sleeps too, only for a few minutes at a time but it's better than nothing, and there's no way she's allowing herself to sleep properly, not yet.

Not until she's certain Chakra's going to be alright, temperature back to normal, not until she's got her home, seen for herself, because as much as she trusts her colleagues- and she does, she really does- she doesn't quite trust anyone else to look after her daughter while she's like this.

"Alicia? Alicia, you awake?" Elle calls. "Alicia?"

She stirs, lifts her head, momentarily startled, suddenly hit with the realisation that she's been sleeping a little more deeply than she had intended.

Chakra is watching her, blinks a little, still pale, eyelids heavy, but her small hand doesn't feel as cold as it did before.

"How long's it been?"

"Couple of hours," Elle tells her gently. "Chakra's just woken up too, we're going to take her off the oxygen now."

"Are you sure? She was out there all night…"

"But her temperature's up to thirty-five now, her pulse is sixty-six… that's still a little low, I know," Elle agrees; some of Alicia's doubts must have shown on her face. "Her blood sugar was rock bottom when Dylan brought her in, she was dehydrated, and the IV's corrected that, but I think we should try her with some food and warm fluids. You'll probably feel much better once you can get cleaned up properly, won't you, Chakra?" she suggests gently. "We can find you some warm clothes, get rid of some of these blankets? Okay, sweetie. Let's sit you up, then." She waits for Robyn to adjust the hospital bed into an upright position, reaches for the oxygen mask, removes it gently.

Chakra is still for a moment, silent, and Alicia glances between her and the vitals monitor obsessively, anxious, waiting for signs of respiratory distress that thankfully don't come.

"Mammy," Chakra manages, voice weak, a little raspy, though nowhere near as bad as Alicia had feared. "I'm sorry…"

Alicia's arms are around her in seconds, hugs her tightly, instinctively, knows she really shouldn't, that she's only making Elle's life more difficult trying to observe but she can't not.

She needs Chakra to know she loves her, needs her to feel safe.

Selfishly, she needs to hold her close for her own benefit, because every last trace of maternal instinct is screaming out at her to never let her go again.

"You have nothing to apologise for, sweetheart," she tells her, breathes a soft sigh of relief as Chakra's arms wrap shakily around her neck. "Nothing. Okay? This isn't your fault, Chakra, you don't have to apologise. I'm the one who should be sorry," she whispers. "Not you. This isn't your fault. I should have listened, shouldn't I, I should never have made you go back into school yesterday…"

"Am I in trouble?" Chakra asks. Her eyes fill with tears and she clings on tighter, leans in onto Alicia, shivers.

"No, no you aren't, Chakka, you're not in any trouble. Of course you're not. Okay, okay, come here," she says softly. She gives in, picks her daughter up, transfers her onto her lap and cuddles her close, mouths her apologies to Elle. She's shivering now, her temperature would have been too low when she was first brought in, Alicia's medical training reminds her; that's a good sign, if nothing else. "I'm not angry with you, sweetheart. Nobody's angry with you. I have been so, so worried about you," she murmurs, tucks Chakra's head under her chin, tries to share her body heat. "I was so scared I'd never see you again. But I'm not angry, this isn't your fault, sweetheart. Can you tell me why, Chakra?" she tries carefully. "Can you tell me why you ran away?"

"Because…" Her breathing comes in hiccups, and Elle shoots Alicia a warning look. "I felt… really scared, and sad… and my heart was… going… really fast… and… and Sophia…" Her fingers tangle around the end of one messy, bedraggled plait, anxious, ashamed, and Alicia can't bear it.

"Was it Sophia who cut your hair?" she asks carefully, fights to keep her tone level. "The police told me, when they were trying to find you," she explains quickly, at the look of confusion on Chakra's face. "The police said Mrs Davies found some of your hair in your classroom… so it was Sophia?"

Chakra nods, buries her face in Alicia's chest, sobs. "I wanted… to go home… but Mrs Davies said… when you left… she… wouldn't… let… the office… send… me… home… because… you're… too… much of… a pushover… and I have… to stay… in school…"

"Oh, okay. Okay, sweetheart, breathe for me. But you didn't tell Mrs Davies what happened?"

Chakra shakes her head. "I asked… if I could… go… the bathroom… I just… wanted… you…"

"Shhh, Chakra. It's all over now. I am never, ever going to leave you in a situation where you feel so scared you think the only option is to run away, never again. I promise, sweetheart. Never again." She's piecing together the timeline in her head, now, beginning to understand, feels horribly sick. "Do you know why she did it, Chak? Did anything happen before that? Was it just Sophia who upset you, or was there something else?" she tries, but Chakra just cries harder, clings on as though her life depends upon it. "Okay. Okay, I'm sorry, I know you're upset. We don't have to think about it now, alright? It's all over. I'm not sending you back there, darling, that's not happening, they should have been looking after you at school, not letting you wander off all by yourself. They should have realised you were upset, they should have found out why, this is _not_ your fault, Chakka. You're only little. The adults in your life should be looking after you, shouldn't we, we shouldn't be letting you down like this."

"Are they… angry?"

"Your school? No, they're not, sweetheart, they've been really worried about you, too." She inspects the ends of Chakra's plaits carefully, compares them, hands shake with rage. "Once we get you out of here, I'll take you to the hairdresser, okay, they can even it out. You won't even be able to tell. It's fixable, okay? It's not the end of the world, it'll grow back. I know it must have been horrible, I know, but it's not going to happen again. I'm not going to let it."

"I just… wanted to… find you…"

"Is that why you ran away from school?" Alicia asks gently. "Okay. I need you to promise me you're never going to do that again, sweetheart. You promise? I'm not angry, Chakra, and I'm never going to leave you somewhere you feel so unhappy again, but you have to promise me you aren't going to run away again, too. Yeah? Alright." She kisses Chakra's forehead, takes in the mud in her hair, Dylan's old t shirt hanging of her like a dress, too big. "Anything could have happened to you. I was so scared I was never going to see you again…"

"Mammy?"

"Hmm?" Alicia loosens her grip slightly, allows Robyn to tuck a hospital blanket around them both, to check Chakra's temperature.

"There was a man."

Alicia's blood runs cold.

"Do you mean Dylan?" she asks. "Chakra? Dylan found you in the woods, you were with his dog, do you remember? I think she was probably trying to look after you."

Even as she's speaking those words, posing the question, she knows Chakra doesn't mean Dylan, and it's perfectly clear from Elle and Robyn's expressions, from the way Mrs Beauchamp pauses, re-entering Resus 3, that they know it too.

"No… he… I was walking… to the hospital… and he was in a car, and he said that… he worked with you… and you told him to come and get me… but I know everyone who works here… and I knew he didn't… so I said no, and I ran because… I was really scared… and then I got lost… and I was in the woods… and I didn't know where I was…"

All Alicia can do is grip her tightly, paralysed with fear.

She nearly lost her. If Chakra had gone along with it… if she hadn't run when she did… if she'd hesitated… if things had worked out even slightly differently…

She nearly lost her after all…. Someone… someone tried to… she should never have been by herself… if she hadn't run…

She feels sick, she's going to be sick…

"Did he… did he hurt you?" she manages. "Did he touch you…"

"No." Chakra curls back into her chest, innocent, clearly oblivious to her mother's distress, why this is enough to send her into a panic all over again. "He was in a car. But I ran… and then I got confused… I thought I was running on the pavement, but then I kept going… and I thought I could wait in the woods until he would be definitely… gone, and come out again, but it all looked the same…" There's panic rising in her voice now, as though in her head she's back there, back lost in the middle of nowhere, no idea where she is, how to get back…

"Chakra, listen to me." Alicia lets go, just for a moment, needs to be able to look at her properly, to know she understands. "You did the right thing, sweetheart, I am so, so glad you knew not to go with him. I will never send anyone you don't know to come and get you, okay? You understand? You did exactly the right thing, you never, ever, go with anyone you don't know, no matter what they tell you. And if… I'm not letting you out by yourself again until you're at least… I don't know, fourteen, or something, but if something like that ever happens again, if someone tries to tell you to go with them, and you don't know them, you get away, you tell someone what's happened, you scream, if you have to, but no matter what you never go along with it. Ever. I've got enough people you do know to send to come and get you if I can't, haven't I, we don't need to resort to anyone you don't know. Okay? You promise?"

"Promise." Chakra leans back in, clings, plays with Alicia's hair, seems to have regressed about four years.

"Alicia, I'm going to update the police," Elle explains softly, calmly. "We told them Chakra was safe when Dylan brought her in, they were going to come by later, but I'm going to call them now. Why don't you take Chakra down to the showers? Shall we see if you can stand up, Chakra?" she asks, taking control. "Let go of Mummy for a moment, sweetie, that's it."

Chakra climbs off her lap, stands slowly; stable, Alicia realises, she's stable, thank god.

"There you go, you're doing really well, aren't you? We just need to take you down to the showers so we can wash all that mud out of your hair and you'll feel so much better. Your mum can take you down to Paeds, okay, you can see where she works."

Alicia doesn't need to be told twice. She throws her handbag and the holdall of Chakra's clothes over her shoulder, bends, picks up Chakra before Elle can tell her she needs to let her be transferred down to Paeds on a hospital trolley, can't quite bear to let her go.

She remembers feeling like this back when Chakra was born, that third week, finally allowed to hold her again and all of a sudden, she felt as though putting her down, letting go of her even for a moment, would tear her heart into pieces.

The CAMHS psychiatrist would probably tell her it's all her fault, if she knew, Alicia contemplates wearily; that she gave her too much of her attention from day one, spoiled her, made her stupidly clingy, set her up for so-called separation anxiety right from the start.

As soon as she's gotten Chakra home, as soon as she's reassured that she's alright, over the shock of it all, Alicia resolves to get details of Mrs Beauchamp's private child psych contact, make Chakra an appointment.

They can't go on like this. That much is clear.

Chakra shivers a little against her chest, whimpers, as though the hell of the last twenty-four hours is finally catching up with her.

They've clearly attempted to wash away the worst of the mud in resus, but she still smells of dirt and damp and fear.

"Come on, sweetheart," Alicia says softly, smiles gratefully as Robyn opens the door into Paeds for her. "It's all over now. You'll feel better after a warm shower. I think we're going to need an entire bottle of conditioner to get all those knots out of your hair, aren't we?"

"Will I have to have it all cut off?" Chakra blinks at her worriedly, eyelids heavy.

"Hey, have a bit more faith in my detangling skills than that, please. Of course you won't, Chak, don't be silly. We're going to have to cut a tiny bit off the end just to make it all the same length, okay? That's it. It'll grow back really quickly." She still hasn't given up on persuading Chakra to have half the length cut off, but now definitely isn't the time.

She carries her through into the shower room off the Paeds ward, puts her down, unravels her plaits. "See? It's not even that bad. I know, sweetheart, I know you're tired, you can go back to sleep in a bit."

"Chakra, do you want me to help you?" Robyn asks gently, glances to Alicia. "Or do you want your mum?"

Chakra folds her arms across her chest, shivers. "I can wash my hair by myself."

"You can? You're very grown up, aren't you, Charlotte couldn't have dealt with her hair by herself when she was seven. But you gave us a bit of a scare there, sweetheart, so we really need someone to keep an eye on you, okay? You still look very tired. We don't want you to lock yourself in a cubicle, just in case…"

"Mammy," Chakra protests. "Mammy, I can do it by myself."

"Hey, I know you can, we're not doubting that, Chak. We just don't want you passing out in the shower, that's all. You were really ill when Dylan found you, we just want to make sure you don't get worse again without us realising, okay? That's all. I know you're feeling a bit better now, but you're still very weak, we just don't want you wearing yourself out."

Chakra pouts at them both, uncooperative.

"It's just for today, Chakra," Alicia tries. "It's alright. It's just for today. You still look tired, sweetheart, I doubt you slept properly last night, did you?"

She frowns for a moment, considers. "I don't remember."

"No, I'm sure you don't. Look, you do realise if you make a total mess of it, I'm going to have to do it for you anyway? We can't leave you caked in mud, can we?"

"But I won't though…"

"No, sweetheart, I know you think that. I get it. I really do." She's regretting the day she ever encouraged Chakra to be more independent now; is seven really too old to still be needing your mam to wash your hair? Alicia considers. Probably not. "But you've had a really, really traumatic couple of days, haven't you? I just want to make sure you don't collapse, okay? I don't want you to lock the door, just in case, you're still a bit shaky. And we don't want to get your bandages all wet, do we, or Robyn will have to do them again…"

"Mammy, I don't want you to." There's something strange in her voice that Alicia isn't expecting, panic, almost, difficult to place. "I don't need you to, I can do it by myself."

"Okay, so I will let you do it by yourself, Chakra, I will, as long as you don't collapse on me, but I really don't want you to lock the door…"

"Mammy!"

"Come on, sweetheart, you're doing so well," Robyn tries. "We're going to leave you in peace after this, we'll let you sleep, and then as long as you keep doing this brilliantly we'll let you go home later, okay? We just need to get you cleaned up, wet hair isn't going to help with hypothermia…"

"Mammy, I don't want you to, Mammy…" Chakra pleads with her. Her lip trembles, eyes fill with tears, and something isn't right, Alicia realises all too late. She's _seven_ , she's only just graduated from needing someone to wash her hair for her as of a few months ago, she shouldn't be reacting like this aged seven, she's too young for a desperate need for privacy, for embarrassment, surely…

She's switched to sobbing before Alicia can stop her, overly distressed. "Please, Mammy, please, I don't want you to…"

"Okay. Okay, calm down, sweetheart, you're okay." Alicia crouches down in front of her, holds her hands, tries to ignore the concerned look Robyn shoots her. "Chakra, can you tell me why you're so upset?"

Chakra shakes her head tearfully, looks down, refuses to meet her mother's eyes.

"I'm going to wait outside, Chakra, okay?" Robyn tells her, smiles at Alicia, sympathetic, eyes filled with worry. "I'll be just outside."

She waits until Robyn has closed the shower room door, rearranges Chakra's damp, mud-streaked hair, brushes at the tears staining her cheeks with her fingertips.

"Chakra," she says softly. "Chakra, sweetheart. You can tell me anything, okay? You know that, right?"

Chakra nods, still can't meet her eyes.

"So you know you can tell me what this is about? Chakka? I'm not going to be angry, whatever it is. I don't like seeing you like this. Has something happened? Has… has someone…?"

"No." Chakra shakes her head; she's telling the truth, Alicia decides, she can see right through her when she's lying.

"Okay. You can tell me, Chakra. You can. I just want to understand why you're so upset, that's all. It can stay between us, okay? I won't tell anybody else if you don't want me to…"

"You wouldn't understand!" Chakra sobs.

It's the kind of comment she might expect from a young teen, a pre-teen, maybe.

Not from her daughter, not at seven.

Surely at seven, she should be still young enough to believe that her mam can fix absolutely everything?

"No, you're right, I might not," Alicia agrees, changes tactic, panic rising within her. "But I promise I'll try to. Whatever you tell me, sweetheart, I promise I'll try to understand. I love you. I love you so much, Chakra, I don't want you to be sad."

Chakra looks down again, almost ashamed, shivers, grips Alicia's hand back as though clinging on for dear life.

"Because I'm too f…" She begins, and then she clams up again, closes her eyes, grip goes limp. "I don't want to talk about it anymore."

What on earth is she supposed to do with that?

"Okay," she says at last, fights to keep her voice level. "Okay, sweetheart, it's okay. We don't have to talk about it now, alright, I know you're really tired. Can I… can I have a hug?" she asks.

There's more apprehension in her voice than she would like, but Alicia is in such terrifyingly unchartered territory now that she's genuinely unsure how Chakra will react.

She breathes a sigh of relief as Chakra wraps her arms around her neck, cuddles in close.

"I love you," she whispers. "I missed you so, so much, sweetheart. You're perfect just as you are, okay? Don't you ever think you aren't. You're my beautiful baby, and I love you so much. Alright," she says gently, pulls away. "Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to hold the door shut, okay, I'm going to stay out here and I'll hold the door shut. But we're not going to tell Robyn that's what we did, it's hospital policy, okay, it's to make sure you don't collapse and hurt yourself, you'll get her into trouble. You can pass me through your clothes and I'll pass you a towel when you're done. And you're sure you're okay? Alright," she sighs. "Alright. We'll go for a compromise. But I want you to keep talking to me, Chak. Just so I know you're okay. Let's get these bandages off you then, shall we, I'll redo them for you in a bit. Or somebody will."

"Do I have to stay in hospital overnight?" Chakra asks worriedly.

"I don't know yet," Alicia tells her, heart aching. "I'm not sure. Auntie Elle will make a decision on that later. We just need to make sure you're definitely not going to need any more help getting better before you come home, okay? That's all. But I'll stay here with you, if you have to spend the night here. Does that make you feel better?" She waits for Chakra's slow nod, gently peels back the first bandage, winces at the raw skin exposed underneath.

"Do you remember how you did this?" Alicia asks quietly. "Chakra?"

She's fighting back the urge to cry, stupidly; it doesn't make any sense. It's her daughter who's been through a terrifying ordeal, her daughter who has apparently resorted to the worst of coping mechanisms for a small child, and she's the one holding back the tears.

What right does she have?

Chakra shrugs, looks down, the kind of reaction Alicia would expect had she been caught doing something she knew she shouldn't.

"Hey, I'm not cross with you, darling. I promise I'm not cross with you, I'd just like you to tell me the truth. These look really painful, Chakra," she tries carefully.

No response.

"Can I tell you what I think, Chakka?" The child psych would probably have a fit at this, complain that she's leading her on, steering her towards a response that suits her, rather than the truth as Chakra needs it, but screw the child psych, screw all of them. She's an emergency doctor with a paeds specialism, after all; this is her area of expertise just as much as it is CAMHS.'

"I think that maybe you're not doing it consciously," Alicia begins, watches Chakra's face for a reaction. "You know what consciously means, right? Of course you do. I think you do it when you're feeling sad, or scared, and maybe…" she hesitates, voice trembles, hopes Chakra is too tired and disorientated to realise. "Maybe, sometimes, it makes you feel better?"

She's silent for a while, stares at her mother's hands over her own, and at first, Alicia thinks she's going to say nothing, shut her out, and then she fidgets, tired, surrenders.

"How do you know that?" she asks.

"Because I'm a children's doctor, it's my job to know these things." She feels as though she's drowning; drowning under the weight of it all because it's her fault, she's her mother, it has to be her fault…

Chakra rests her head against Alicia's shoulder, snuggles. "So… I'm normal?"

"Of course you're normal, sweetheart. Of course you are." She strokes her hair, closes her eyes, lost, horribly so. "I'm sorry," Alicia whispers. "I'm sorry, I should have noticed, I should have realised… we're going to talk some more about this later, I think we're both too tired to talk about it just now, aren't we? We need to come up with something you can do when you're feeling sad that isn't that. So you're going to wash your hair, okay, I'm going to hold the door shut for you and then we'll go and find you a bed and you can sleep some more. It's going to be alright," she promises wearily, drained, brink of defeat. "I promise it's going to get better."

She calls Ethan's from the corridor outside; knows she shouldn't, that she would be first to shout at any of her patient's parents and tell them to use the relatives' room rather than lurk here, but she's relying on the fact that she practically lives in this part of the hospital nowadays, relying on the paeds team to turn a blind eye.

She just wants to hear his voice.

Her whole world is falling apart again, and she just wants to hear his voice.

"Alicia? Alicia, how is she?"

Ethan's voice is laced with worry, and Alicia feels guilty all over again.

"She's alright," Alicia stammers. "She's alright, she's… she's out of resus, Elle's just transferred her down to Paeds, her temperature's still on the low side but she was completely covered in mud when she was brought in, she was soaked, I think she'll probably feel a bit more human now she's washed all the mud off, if nothing else. I didn't tell you, did I?" she realises all of a sudden; the last twenty-four hours or so seem to have merged into one huge, murky, confused mess and she can't remember who she's told what, desperately needs sleep but she can't, not until Chakra does.

"Dylan found her in the woods down by the canal," she explains wearily. "I think she was trying to get back to the ED, to me, she… she got lost, or something, I don't know. He lost Dervla last night, found her this morning… is it still this morning? He found them together this morning, sounds like Dervla was trying to, I don't know, guard her or something. She… well, I haven't managed to get much out of her, really, she was hypothermic, they had her on humidified oxygen, and she's still a bit confused, I think, she's feeling worse than she wants me to believe… but she's okay. She's okay, she's going to be okay. Physically, at least. The police are going to come and speak to her in a bit… it's standard, really, isn't it, I guess I'll know more after that, I'll keep you updated."

There's no point giving him the terrifying details, Chakra's innocent revelation that's freaked Alicia out completely, put a mental image into her head, a 'what if,' that she doesn't want to burden Ethan with, not yet.

Not on top of the other bombshell she's going to have to drop.

God, he doesn't deserve this.

"Physically?" Ethan asks.

His voice is trembling.

"I've messed her up so badly, Ethan," Alicia sobs. "It's my fault, it must be… she's so much worse than I thought, maybe the child psych is kind of right after all, I don't know, but she's so much worse, I've done something catastrophically wrong with her, and I don't know what, but I've failed her, she's suffering and it's all my fault…"

"Mammy? Mammy, why have you packed me my unicorn onesie thing?"

"Because when I got the call to come and get you, you were hypothermic, and I know you aren't a fan but it looks warm!" Alicia shouts. "Sorry," she whispers in the phone, tries her best to pull herself together. "Sorry, I've got to go, I need to go and check on Chakra…"

"Alright. Alright… I… call me when you can, yeah? I know you must have your hands full with her…"

"No, no, I will," Alicia promises. "Soon as she's asleep… and, you know, after the night she must have had last night, that could well be 4pm."

"It'll be alright, darling," Ethan says softly, and for a moment, Alicia can almost believe him. "It'll be alright."

 **I am so, so sorry for the delay with this one, I was really hoping to get this to you before Christmas but it just wasn't possible in the end. I hope it was worth the wait!** **Thank you so much casfics, Katie, Lewisek18 and my three guests for reviewing the last chapters, as ever, I am hugely grateful for your support. I never imagined anyone would read this story when I first started, and you guys have honestly been one of the highlights of my 2018. THANK YOU!**

 **To casfics, who asked about one shots- I am nearly finished with the last chapter of Let Me Come Back To Your Hand and about halfway through an Atoms chapter, which I really do promise is coming your way in 2019! I also have a couple of oneshots sketched out, which I will write up if anyone would be interested in reading them.**

 **The first one is provisionally called 'Droned,' and is inspired by my nightmare trying to get back to the UK last week- I don't think I need to say any more! This one will contain very, very minor spoilers re how this story ends, so I'm in two minds about posting this one just yet, but it's very much up to you guys.**

 **The second one is title-less at the moment, and is a kind of series of mini oneshots in one oneshot following on from the Alicia's rape storyline.**

 **If you would be interested in either of these, or you have anything you would like to request for either a oneshot, Atoms or Avalon, please do let me know!**

 **I think I'm going to give you part two of chapter 25 next (the Ruby/Alicia one), but if you would prefer something else, feel free to tell me.**

 **Reviews would be wonderful, and I wish you all a happy, peaceful 2019,**

 **-IseultLaBelle**


	28. Chapter 28

**Just to warn you all in advance, I don't think this will be anything you haven't seen coming for a while, and it's no worse than regular Casualty storylines, but this does contain a couple of upsetting themes, and goes into slightly more detail than I have in the past. If you've been okay with this story so far and Alicia's rape storyline I think you'll be fine, but it only seemed fair to warn you.**

 **And yes, this was going to be the Ruby chapter, but once again I've had to split it because the first part of what I had planned took on a life of its own. I PROMISE it really will be the Ruby chapter as the next past chapter!**

 **Chapter 28**

 **24 weeks**

As it turns out, she isn't depressed after all.

Or perhaps she is; it just isn't the cause of the excessive exhaustion.

Rather, she's managed to come down with the flu virus currently working its way around Holby, on top of everything else.

Bea and Ruby won't even let her out of bed the next morning, let alone anywhere near the ED. Bea phones in sick for her and she and Ruby run home to check on her in their lunch breaks, bring her multiple cups of herbal tea and food she can't stomach, rationed paracetamol and strange homeopathic remedies Ruby has picked up from goodness only knows where. Bea orders her one of those pregnancy pillow things from Amazon, and as much as Alicia would have turned her nose up at it a week ago, too alien, unfamiliar, overwhelming, a reminder of a medical fact she isn't entirely comfortable with, not yet, it turns out to be a godsend, eases the aches and pains she hadn't even realised she had until Bea presents her with it.

She just wants to sleep. She feels as though all her energy has been drained from her, and all she wants is sleep.

Perhaps it isn't just the flu, admittedly. Perhaps it's the flu that's allowing her to give into it at last, providing her with an excuse, but her overwhelming desire to just shut the world out isn't purely down to the exhaustion; Alicia isn't stupid.

She might not have fitted a psychiatry rotation into her foundation training, but the little she covered in medical school is enough. It's just all reached the point at which it's far too overwhelming, too much to process all at once and in too deep for her preferred pretend it isn't happening approach to carry her through much longer, and she can't cope with it all anymore, just wants the world to stop turning.

Twelve weeks.

Everything was so normal twelve weeks ago; perfect, even. She and Ethan had been together, properly together, for just over a year, spending more and more time staying over at one another's, were just beginning to talk about him moving into hers permanently. Ethan was gradually starting to gain confidence with clinical research, progressing, she was combining shifts in the children's ED with study leave, preparing for the latest stage of her registrar exams, looking forward to getting this part out of the way at last so she could move on to more specialist paeds training, start that set of exams, work towards consultant.

Ethan… Ethan had been tired, more so than usual, coordination unusually lacking, mentally foggy, noticeably so… but Alicia had dismissed it all as connected to the extra shifts he had been taking on to facilitate her study leave… she hadn't been feeling quite herself, vomiting, drained, but that wasn't necessarily out of character, she always did get stupidly nervous in the lead up to exams, even back at school…

She's been through this so many times now, enough to know that it doesn't help, but somehow it isn't so easy to stop.

Twelve weeks ago, she had Ethan, and no idea of the storm brewing.

She had Ethan…

Ethan saved her. That's the simple truth of it. Ethan picked up the pieces after the ambulance crash, after Eddie, Ethan put her back together, over the past year, helped her learn to trust again.

He just didn't quite make it as far as building her back up to being able to cope by herself, and now he's gone, she's drowning again.

Except now it's even worse, because as much as she might have begun to get over that awful night with Eddie- or to learn to live with it, at least- now she's going to have a tiny, sick baby who'll need her in sixteen weeks, maybe even more like fourteen, and she can't even get over her long-gone boyfriend… how is she going to cope with a baby? How is she even going to know where to begin? She's hardly been looking after herself, not since Ethan left, she can't eat, she can't sleep, she can't focus on anything at all that isn't work related, as though it's some kind of escape…

Ethan.

This changes everything. He's not coming back, Alicia is under no illusions there, but even if he were to, this would change everything. All the plans she might have made in her head of them spending the rest of their lives together are forever ruined, he's going to keep going downhill, he's going to lose his mobility, control of his emotions, his ability to speak, to eat… it's all going to go until there's nothing, nothing left of Ethan…

He's going to fade away, wherever he is, whether he comes back or not, and their baby is going to need her even more because she'll be the only parent she has… she has to pull herself together somehow…

Alicia just doesn't know how.

Sixteen weeks. Sixteen weeks, that's all she has left, just shy of four months and she isn't ready.

She hasn't even thought about names, for starters, not beyond the middle name she had secretly picked out for longer of the last year and a few months she and Ethan were together than she's willing to admit, one for a boy and one for a girl (because she wanted this baby; she might have been unplanned, might have been completely unexpected, but she's wanted to be a mother for longer than she realised until those lines on the pregnancy test).

Hers and Ruby's plans for baby shopping went out the window when she came down with this virus, she hasn't even started… is that normal, at this stage? Probably not, Alicia contemplates- and she has a _lot_ of time to contemplate, those few days. She hasn't even managed shopping for maternity clothes yet, as ridiculous as that sounds at twenty-four weeks; she's going to have to do it soon, rapidly approaching the point at which she's not even going to be able to fit into her 'fat' jeans and oversized jumpers, forced out into the maternity section… she needs to get her head around that sooner rather than later, but right now, she can't face a changing room mirror.

She's going to have to tell them all at work, before it becomes obvious; no, screw that, screw it all, it's beyond obvious already and they all think she's being ridiculous, they aren't even trying to hide their frustration with her now…

How many sets of clothes does she need for a new born?

Sixteen weeks… she's going to have a real, live baby, one that's _hers_ , in sixteen weeks, and Alicia doesn't have a clue what she's doing.

In another life, she would have raided the baby section in… in… in wherever it is new parents go for baby clothes nowadays (she doesn't even know that, it's ridiculous, how can she be twenty-four weeks pregnant and not even know that? Any half-decent expectant mother would know that, this is just further proof that she's completely useless, that she's going to mess her poor baby up within hours, once she's born, if she hasn't managed that already…) Not even in another life; she wants to do it in this one, desperately so.

She just can't quite get her head around it yet, the whole pregnancy thing.

She can't get her head around the fact that she's going to have to do it all without Ethan.

She just wants him back.

Bea has Mrs Beauchamp come over to check her over, on the third day. That's the point at which Alicia realises she and Ruby have been worried about her; she's been too disorientated, too exhausted, to think straight. Bea has always been independent, after all, arguably too independent, confident, just wants to get on with it all by herself, never mind checking with anyone more senior.

"It's definitely this flu strain," she's vaguely aware of Mrs Beauchamp telling Bea and Ruby, tone just a little grim. "Nothing more serious than that."

"Sorry," Bea apologises quickly. "Sorry, I thought so, I just… what with everything else…"

"No, no, you did the right thing. It's just a question of waiting for it to clear up, really, fluids, paracetamol only, you know the drill. I'm assuming she didn't have the vaccination this winter."

"Had… too much on my mind," Alicia manages, thoroughly irritated with all their fussing, Mrs Beauchamp's hand pressed against her forehead, one of them- Bea or Ruby, she isn't sure- sat on the edge of the bed, rearranging the pile of blankets around her.

"Alright. Alright, I'm not going to lecture you on pregnant women being at greater risk of complications from flu, you know that already. She hasn't started developing bronchitis symptoms?"

Mrs Beauchamp is no longer talking to her, clearly, must have turned back to Bea or Ruby, but Alicia's mind is racing, close as she's been able to come to thinking with any real clarity in three days.

She loves this baby, more than she could have possibly imagined, pre-pregnancy.

No matter what her behaviour of the last twelve weeks might suggest, out of context.

"She can't be… premature… she's already… too…"

"Alright, Alicia, relax. I'm going to take your blood pressure, okay?" Someone pulls back the blankets gently, reaches for her arm.

"Increased risk of… stillbirth…"

"Alicia. Alicia, your blood pressure's fine, sweetheart. Panicking isn't going to help. And you're not experiencing any pains?"

She begins to shake her head, realises it's the worst idea in the world with a splitting headache, stops abruptly. "Just… back pain, but for weeks… it's not contractions… I can't lose her, I can't…"

"No pelvic pain? Cramping? No? Alright. And you're having regular movements?"

"She's not… less than normal…"

Does that even make any grammatical sense? She can't think straight, paralysed by fear and all the perils of full-on flu.

"Okay. Can I examine you? Alicia? I don't think there's anything to worry about, sweetheart, I really don't, but I'm just going to check your baby's…"

"No, no, no, no, please…" She knows what's coming and she can't deal with it, not on top of everything else, not when she hasn't mentally prepared herself, thought she had another week before she had to go through this hell again…

"… Heartbeat, it's just going to be a stethoscope, sweetheart, I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to put your mind at rest…"

"I don't want you to touch me… there… it just… takes me back to… I don't want…"

"She got like this at her anomaly scan," Bea warns worriedly. "It's all connected to… you know, to what she went through a year and a half ago, she worked herself into a total panic… look, I can take over? She let me do an abdominal palpation last time, not that her midwife was grateful…"

"Alright," Mrs Beauchamp agrees. "Alright, if you're sure. Alicia? Alicia, will you let Bea do it, sweetheart? No one wants to hurt you, you're safe with us, I just want to be absolutely certain your baby's…"

"I can't… I can't, please…"

It's here, it happened here, Alicia realises, in her bed… and the moment that thought has entered her head, she's right back there, trapped, and she can't shake it…

 _He's pressing down on her, she's told him no but he's pinning down her arms, presses down on her stomach, lowers, his teeth make contact with her neck and he's moaning, and she can't… she can't…_

"Alicia? Alicia, I'm going to be really quick, okay? Like last time, last time wasn't too awful, wasn't it? I'm going to check her heartrate and then we're all going to leave you alone until your next scan, I promise. It'll be fine. I'm not going to hurt you, lovely. I promise I won't hurt you, I just want to make sure your baby's alright. Will you let me do that?" Bea asks softly. "I just want to put you mind at rest, that's all. I'm not him, Alicia," she whispers, crouches beside her by the side of the bed, faintly enough that only Alicia can hear. "I'm not him, I promise I won't hurt you. No one's ever going to hurt you like that again, not on my watch. Okay? You're safe. We're going to get you through this."

It's not just the flashbacks, the utter hell of having to be examined again, unwanted hands probing her, at someone else's mercy… it's not just that anymore.

She's so self-conscious and it's just getting worse and worse, she thought it was going to get better after she found out she could keep this baby, thought she'd be able to enjoy this, but she can't, she's just not cut out for this, she can't do it, she's enormous, she knows she is, she feels ridiculously enormous and she knows that's completely irrational, she isn't stupid, but knowing it doesn't help, she's too self-conscious to let anyone near her, even Bea, she doesn't want it but she can't bear with not knowing for sure that her baby is safe either, she can't do this…

Everything hurts. Her limbs feel as though they're made of lead, classic flu symptoms, she feels as though she's sinking into the mattress, huge, heavy, beached whale, and she just wants to sleep, just wants to keep on hiding her secret in Ethan's oversized pyjamas he abandoned at hers before he left, stay curled up under the heap of blankets and sleep…

Ethan's gone… Ethan's gone, he's made it perfectly clear he's not coming back, no one else is going to want her once she has a poorly baby and her body is ruined, Ethan's gone, she's going to be alone forever and it's so cold, she's so cold… she's feels so vulnerable, so exposed…

She wants Ethan.

"Alicia? I know, lovely, I know you feel awful. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can go back to sleep, okay? You know how it goes with flu, you just need to sleep through the worst of it and then you'll start to feel better…"

 _He's pressing down on her and she can't breathe, he's hard, intent, alert enough to have heard her say no, she's certain he is, but still he won't stop, his hands are all over her…_

There's a gentle pressure on her hand, pulling her back to reality.

"Alicia, relax," Bea pleads with her gently. "You're shaking, sweetheart, relax. You're fine. I'm not going to do anything until you consent. I'm not going to do anything you don't want me to, you know that, right? I wouldn't do that. None of us would, what he did to you isn't normal, Alicia. We aren't going to treat you like that. You're going to be fine. It'll all be over in a few seconds, everything's going to be fine."

She can't do this.

She can barely cope with the prenatal examinations as it is, there's no way she's going to be able to push out a baby…

Except she might not have to, she remembers hazily, she might be forced into a caesarean, is that worse? Yes, she decides, it's worse, she'll be completely out of control on top of everything else, she can't…

Bea squeezes her hand again, pulls her back to reality.

She has to do this. She doesn't know how, but she's going to have to do this.

She hasn't got any other choice.

"Okay," Alicia whispers, squeezes her eyes shut, defeated. She pushes back the blankets clumsily, coordination gone; she's too exhausted, head throbbing, she just wants it over with so she can sleep some more…

Awkwardly, she tries to prop herself upright, eyes still closed because it's so painfully bright all of a sudden.

Gentle hands find her shoulders, guide her back down.

"You can stay like that, it's alright. I'm just going to find Meabh's heartbeat, okay?"

She smiles a little at that, would have rolled her eyes in mock exasperation if she wasn't feeling so awful. "I've told you, I'm not calling her Meabh."

"I know that's what you think right now, but if I keep using it, perhaps it might grow on you," Bea teases. "There you go, I've got her heartbeat, that distracted you, if nothing else. What do you reckon, Ruby?" she asks. "Meabh Munroe? Or Tara? Tara…" she trails off, falters. "Is that her moving?"

Alicia nods weakly, head pounding, self-conscious, patience wearing thin and she just wants to sleep… "She does that. Bea…"

"That's adorable. Her heartrate's perfect," Bea tells her softly. "She's absolutely fine, Alicia, she's got a strong heartbeat. You want to listen?" she offers. "Would that put your mind at rest?"

Alicia shakes her head adamantly.

It's not that she doesn't want to, as such. She does. she really does. But she's still struggling with this headache, dizzy, disorientated, even curled up on her side, eyes closed, harsh ringing in her ears she can't shake and she can do this herself later, she can unearth her old pink stethoscope she still has somewhere in the back of her wardrobe and do this herself, when she doesn't feel as though her head is going to explode.

She just wants to be left alone. She can't cope with it all, it's all too much, and the gentle pressure on her abdomen from Bea's hand holding the stethoscope in place isn't helping, only forces her to acknowledge the physical changes and she's struggling with that enough as it is, it's all just too much, she just wants them all to leave her alone and let her be miserable…

"Okay," Bea says gently, lightly. "Okay. They'll do that for you next week anyway, I think. But you don't need to worry, Alicia. She's fine, it's you we need to worry about."

"You're… you're sure?"

She desperately wants Bea to stop examining her, stop probing, stop making her uncomfortable, frightened, trapped back in that awful mental space she can't bear to go but at the same time she desperately needs to know her baby is unharmed, she's so conflicted, so confused…

"I'm absolutely positive, sweetheart. She's fine. Her heartrate's perfect, she's obviously wriggling around in there…"

 _She can't move… she's told him to stop, she's tried, but it's as though he doesn't want to hear her, he's crushing her and she can't move, can't scream, powerless to stop him as he prises apart her legs and she can't do this, she can't…_

"Bea, will you please just get your hands off me and stop making me feel even more fat and disgusting than I already do!"

She doesn't mean for it to all explode out of her quite like that.

It's not Bea's fault. It's not even quite as simple as those words imply, not really; it's just the only way Alicia knows how to express something of how she feels in that moment, tired and ill and hormonal and disorientated and confused and grieving and lost and goodness only knows what else she hasn't managed to identify just yet.

That isn't even the main problem, in that moment. It's more to do with Eddie than anything else, and deep down she knows it, but it's all merged into one never-ending nightmare.

She knows she's being irrational, knows that really, deep down, has known it all along, knows it's her firm denial of the whole thing up until two weeks ago that's gotten her into this mess, knows it's in her head but knowing it doesn't help, doesn't help her work out how on earth she's going to struggle through the next sixteen weeks of this utter hell before she has an actual baby to show for it, to make it all worth it…

She doesn't mean to make them all worry, but those words erupt out of her before she can put a stop to them, the end result of twelve weeks of heartache and hopeless denial and eight of them without Ethan and she can't control it, not any longer.

It's just too much.

There's silence, at first. There's nothing but silence, all four of them quiet, and she's shocked them, Alicia realises all-too late, they're going to think she's on course to be a terrible mother, they're going to realise what a complete and utter mess everything has become in her head, they're going to think she's vile and self-centred and awful, and rightly so, because she's pregnant, for god's sake, she shouldn't be feeling like this…

She's closed her eyes again, too bright, too tired, vaguely aware of the covers being draped back over her carefully, tucked around her.

Still silence.

She's blown it, she knew no one would understand, she shouldn't have said anything…

She just wants Ethan back.

"I'm going to put the kettle on," Ruby says suddenly. "Cup of tea? Bea? Mrs Beauchamp?"

There's faint, muffled sounds, after that, responses, but all Alicia's will to focus is gone, ears ringing, too hard to decipher words.

"Okay. Alicia? Alicia, do you want anything? Chamomile tea?"

Alicia nods feebly; not particularly, is her honest answer, but she doesn't have the energy to argue.

Alright. Mrs Beauchamp, do you think you could give me a hand?" Ruby asks casually, and only then does Alicia realise her motive.

It's dawned on her that Alicia's bedroom is far, far too crowded with all four of them in there, that the one thing she desperately needs if she's going to talk about this even a little is space.

There's a gentle thud to her right- Bea shutting the door, Alicia suspects, and then the mattress sinks beside her.

"Alicia? Listen to me, sweetheart, this is important." She takes her hand, squeezes gently, comforts. "I'm sorry," Bea tells her, heartfelt. "I'm sorry, I know this is hard for you, I should have been more…"

She shakes her head, firm, forces herself into an upright position, skull pounding, pulls Bea into an unsteady hug because now guilt is surging through her like nothing else, and she needs her to understand, needs her to realise that she isn't to blame.

"It wasn't you," Alicia whispers, and then she's coughing and crying all at once. "It wasn't anything you did, I didn't mean to take it out on you…"

"Okay," Bea says softly. "Okay. Are you sure…"

"It wasn't you, it wasn't your fault…"

"Hey, okay. If it wasn't, that's fine, but you promise me you'd tell me if it was? Nothing's irrational," she tells her firmly. "Nothing. You've had an awful couple of years, one way and another, you're perfectly entitled to get upset. About anything. Okay? It's normal…"

"No, it's not…"

"You haven't done an obstetrics rotation, remember? I have. It's completely normal for women to struggle with pregnancy after rape, and it's equally normal to struggle with genetic testing and all the shitty uncertainty that comes with it, so all things considered, I think you're doing pretty amazing just to still be standing. You need to try and be kinder to yourself. Meabh needs you to be kinder than yourself. Alright? How long have you been feeling like that?" Her voice is level, careful, and she rubs Alicia's back gently, as though she's a small child. "Alicia?"

She shrugs tearfully, wipes at her eyes. "A month? Maybe longer, I don't know…"

"Hey, it's okay. It's okay, lovely, come here. It's okay. You cry as much as you want. You've had an awful few months and you must be feeling like hell, it's okay to cry. I've got you. You know that isn't true, don't you?" Bea tries. "Because it isn't. You're not fat, you're not disgusting. You're pregnant. It's not even remotely the same thing. You're growing another human. You look tiny for twenty-four weeks, we weren't telling you that at your appointment the other week to make you feel better. You know that really, right? You've got oligohydramnios, for goodness sake, you look anything but fat," she teases gently. "I know it's hard, I know, but I need you to try and believe me. Okay? I wouldn't lie to you, not when I can see how upset you are. Is this why you haven't been eating? Alicia?"

She shakes her head firmly, ignores the nausea rising within her, knows there's no point denying it, not when Bea and Ruby have been onto her for weeks, even Mrs Beauchamp; she's under no illusions, knows it's no coincidence that Mrs Beauchamp has suddenly taken to ushering her out onto her break early and presenting her with lunch once a week or so.

"It's not as simple as that."

"Okay." Bea falls silent for a moment, just holds her, seems to know it's what she needs.

"I just... I just feel so stressed, all the time... I thought it would get better, once I knew, but she's going to be so ill, Bea…"

"And she'll be okay. She will. Ninety-two percent of exomphalos babies get through surgery and go on to be perfectly healthy, we looked it up, remember? You can't really get much better odds than that…"

"With no complications…"

"And her anomaly scan didn't flag anything up, did it? You've got a full genetic screening as well, remember, pretty much everything has to be ruled out…"

Alicia shudders involuntarily, closes her eyes again. "I can't believe that. I want to, but I can't. Not until I see her, not until I know."

"I get that. I really do. But you're going to make yourself ill if you carry on like this, lovely. I think you might be doing that already. Meabh needs you to eat," she reminds her softly. "Okay? You're going to be no use to her when she's here if you've been starving yourself for months, are you? Intentionally or not."

She shakes her head, closes her eyes, head spinning. "You don't have to say it."

"Hmm?"

"She's already too tiny, it's my fault…"

"Or she's just small. It happens. You don't know anything much about how Ethan was as a baby, right? It could just be one of those things. She'll be fine, Alicia. She'll be fine, I'm much more worried about you."

"I just feel so… weird… I guess, about the whole thing, and I don't know why…"

"I think…" Bea hesitates, as though unsure how her latest approach is going to play out. "I think it'll help once you tell everyone. It might feel more real then, you won't have to worry about breaking the news, if nothing else. You won't have to keep denying it all the time. And everyone will be so happy for you…"

"I'm not stupid, I know half the hospital already knows…"

"And that won't be helping, no," Bea agrees. "But they'll understand. However much you decide to tell them, they'll understand, they'll be supportive. And your mam…"

Alicia groans, closes her eyes. "She knows something's up, I know she does. I haven't avoided her for this long since…" She sighs, sick of it all. "I don't know how to change it, now," she admits, defeated. "I'm not sure which is harder, Mam or work. It's just gone on for too long now, I don't know where to start…"

"I know. I know, I can understand that. Work, we can manage pretty easily, though. It'll be fine. We'll just pick a shift next week, get everyone together in the pub after and you can tell them then. I can do the organising. You can tell them you've just been struggling to get your head around it since Ethan left, that isn't all that far from the truth, is it? They'll be fine, Alicia. They'll be fine. And your mam… we can talk about that later, okay, when you're feeling better, we can come up with a plan for telling her too…"

"She's going to know as soon as she sees me, I'm not going to be able to break it to her gently…"

"Nah, she won't, you can't tell when you're wearing baggy jumpers. Even mother's intuition isn't that good. We'll come up with a plan later, okay? It'll be fine. And your mam is going to be completely over the moon at the thought of being a grandma, you know that, right? That's the last thing you need to worry about. It's going to get easier. You'll see. I wish you'd felt you could tell me how much you were struggling before, though."

"I just… I didn't want you to think I was an awful person… I don't… I love her, I do, I don't resent her, I just… I just hate the pregnancy part, I don't know how anyone actually enjoys it, I just feel enormous and self-conscious all the time and it's shit…"

"Hey, you're not enormous. You're a long, long way from enormous. I know that doesn't help, but I'm going to keep reminding you, whether you like it or not, and then you might believe me eventually. Of course your body image is going to be a bit messed up, you've had an awful time of it with all the uncertainty, and pregnancy isn't exactly a walk in the park at the best of times…"

Only then does it dawn on Alicia that in normal circumstances, in another life, she would have Ethan to reassure her, Ethan to stop her self-confidence hitting the rock bottom it has, Ethan to keep telling her she was beautiful even when she knew she wasn't, Ethan…

Ethan.

It might all have been so different, if only he had been here.

"I feel like it's just me…"

"No, it's not," Bea promises. "It's not just you. You're not the first woman to feel like this, and you certainly won't be the last. It doesn't make you a bad mam, it doesn't mean you love her any less. Okay? You're allowed to feel like this. I wish you didn't, but you're perfectly entitled to feel like this. It'll get better. Sixteen weeks. That's all. Sixteen weeks and this part is over, another couple and you'll have her home and it'll all be worth it. It's going to be fine. Meabh is going to be fine."

"I _so_ need to decide on a name for her, I can't let you keep calling her Meabh."

Bea laughs. "I think you like it, you know. Just a little bit. Or Erin? Erin's pretty… okay, fine, not Erin. I'll get you a baby names book, or something. Something tells me you're not going to like anything I suggest."

There's a gentle knock on the door, Ruby appearing in the doorway with a tray of steaming mugs, places one on the bedside table as Bea helps her into a more upright position, Ruby offering her the mug as she shakes her head.

Slowly, tentatively, out of her depth, Alicia reaches out, places her hand for the first time over the mound of flesh uncomfortably jutting out of her; first time unprompted by Ruby, at least, first time she's really wanted to.

Her baby wriggles, some unidentifiable body part curling into her hand, settles there.

It's in that moment, her heart melting, that finally Alicia believes she can survive the next sixteen weeks of this.

 **Thank you, thank you, thank you, 20blueroses, panicpeachpit, Katie (yes, I was a Gatwick drone victim, thankfully only for a few hours!), lewisek18 and my three guests for reviewing the last chapter. You guys are fantastic. To Guest who wanted more chapters like chapter 17, I'm in the process of writing you a flashback for the next present day chapter I hope you'll like :) Pregnancy reveal is also coming up in the next couple of chapters, and there will hopefully be an update of one of my other Casualty stories either tonight or later this week!**

 **I have never, ever been this nervous to post a chapter before, and a lot of research has gone into this one over the last few weeks, so your feedback would be doubly appreciated- whether you loved it or hated it!**

 **You may have worked out by now that this story was originally going to be two separate stories, and I'm attempting to weave them together so the overlapping themes intertwine. If it works, please do tell me, because I have no idea if it comes across the way I want it to!**

 **You may also have worked out that Chakra has tried to tell Alicia what's wrong with her a few times now, Alicia just hasn't realised yet...**

 **Reviews would be wonderful,**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29**

 _"_ _I tried calling Daddy again last night."_

 _She removes the syringe from her baby's mouth, casts it aside, watches her tiny face anxiously for a reaction._

 _"_ _He didn't pick up," Alicia continues, fights to keep her tone level. "I knew he wouldn't, I just… I don't know, I wanted to try again, I guess. But we don't need him, do we? No, we don't," she coos, baby voice well and truly perfected, one month in. "We're going to be just fine, aren't we? Yes, we are. It's his loss, Chakka. It's Daddy's loss, not yours. I love you more than enough for both of us. I didn't even realise it was possible to love anyone this much until I had you."_

 _She sits Chakra up gently, one hand supporting her chin, the other rubbing soothing circles on her back._

 _Chakra blinks for a moment, still, then spits up all over the carefully positioned muslin cloth- or as much as a scarily tiny baby can, at least._

 _Alicia sighs._

 _"_ _Okay, sweetheart, okay. I know. I know, it's not fair, is it? No, it's not." She lifts her as though she's made of glass (because rationally, Alicia knows she isn't, of course, but how is she supposed to believe it when she's so impossibly tiny?), wipes at the vomit, lays her carefully against her chest, skin to skin. "You shouldn't even be born yet, should you, you shouldn't be having to learn to feed yet. I know. I know, I'm sorry, Chakra. I'm sorry. You're doing so well. You're doing so, so well, you just need to get the hang of this, and then we can try feeding properly, and then you can come home with Mammy. Okay? I miss you so much when I have to leave you here."_

 _Chakra snuffles, nestles into Alicia's chest, drowsy, too tiny to feel sorry for herself, surely, but that's how it seems._

 _"_ _You're so adorable, aren't you? Chakra? Yes, you are. You are so adorable." One hand gently around her baby, she reaches out with the other, strokes her tiny fist._

 _Chakra grabs onto her finger, hangs on with surprising grip._

 _"_ _You're so strong now, aren't you? I am_ so _proud of you. It won't be too much longer, sweetheart, I promise. You're doing so well. We just need to wait until you can feed properly, okay? I can't take you home on TPN, so we want to get rid of that as soon as we can, don't we? And then you can come home. You're just a little bit too tiny and fragile at the moment. But I love you so, so much, Chakka, and I never stop thinking about you when I can't be here with you. I'd stay here with you all the time if I could. I really would. I hate leaving you here. You go back to sleep, Chakra, you go back to sleep if you want," Alicia whispers, strokes her head as her eyes blink closed. "I know, being fed is exhausting, isn't it? I know. I know, sweetheart. You have such beautiful hair, don't you? How can you have so much hair when you aren't even full term yet? You're going to be gorgeous when you're older, aren't you? I think so. But don't get any ideas, you're not having a boyfriend until you're at least sixteen. Daddy would back me up on that…"_

 _She sighs heavily, holds her baby a little tighter. "We're going to be okay, aren't we? It's just going to be the two of us, but we'll have Auntie Bea and Auntie Ruby, and Nana and… well, maybe Granddad. We're going to be fine. We don't need anyone else._

 _"_ _I'm going to stay here with you until Auntie Bea comes to get me," Alicia promises. "Okay, sweetheart? I'm not going anywhere for a bit. And then you know Auntie Bea will want cuddles with you when she finishes her shift, right?_ _I think Auntie Bea's your biggest fan, isn't she? Whether she'll still be your biggest fan once you're home and you're keeping her awake all night is another matter altogether, but right now I think she is. And then we'll have to leave you overnight, Chakra, but I promise, I'll be back here first thing tomorrow. I miss you far too much as it is. It's too quiet at home, I'm supposed to have you there to keep me up all hours, aren't I? The NICU team keep telling me you're a terrible sleeper. I'm hoping you might settle down once we get you home, or I think Auntie Bea and Auntie Ruby are going to start protesting once you start properly screaming, aren't they? You're doing so, so well, Chakra." She rests her chin gently on her baby's head, breathes in the still-lingering newborn baby scent._

 _"_ _I'd kidnap you if I could. You know that, right? I'd quite happily smuggle you home with me and never bring you back here if I could, but that wouldn't be fair, really. You just need to stay in here a little bit longer, okay? Just until you work out how to feed properly. And then we're going to have the joy of regular visits from that awful health visitor. So you know, no pressure, but if you could master feeding ASAP once we get you home, that would be great. God, that woman is a cow, isn't she? Isn't she, Chakra? We need to get rid of her as soon as we can, don't we? Yes, we do."_

 _She glances down at Chakra protectively, now fast asleep against her chest. "And you get to see Nana tomorrow, remember I told you this morning? Auntie Bea and Auntie Ruby are on nights for a few days now, so Nana's going to give me a lift tomorrow. And you've got somewhere to sleep now, did I tell you that? Jan came over and did your cot yesterday evening. So we're all ready for you to be discharged, okay? Well, if you manage it in the next two weeks, we're going to be tied to places we can walk unless I can persuade someone to drive us, but we probably won't want to take you out too much at first anyway, will we? Your immune system probably isn't up to much at the moment. We need to go and show everyone in the ED how adorable you are, don't we, but I think we'll leave that for a bit, once you're discharged. We don't want you getting ill."_

 _Her phone vibrates softly beside her, and Alicia looks over, heart sinks just a little._

 _"_ _Auntie Bea's on her way up to see you," she tells Chakra, savours those last few moments of holding her in her arms, her weight against her chest. "So I'm going to have to go soon. But I'll be back to see you tomorrow, sweetheart. Alright? I'm coming right back. I'll see you first thing tomorrow. I'm going to miss you, angel. I'm going to miss you so much. I love you," she whispers, eyes swim with tears, what's become something of a daily ritual. "I love you so much. Even if I'm not here, I still love you, okay? I'm always coming back. I promise."_

They end up in Mrs Beauchamp's office, after Chakra's police statement. They borrow the hairdryer she apparently keeps in the back cupboard in the event of an unexpected all-nighter, Chakra cross-legged on the floor, quiet (out of sheer exhaustion, Alicia suspects, more than anything else, hopefully, more than anything worrying), Alicia sat behind her, with the hairdryer, first chance she's had to properly inspect the damage.

She's never sending her back to that school, Alicia vows. Not unless something changes drastically.

It's only hair, it's not the end of the world- she does know that- but it's the principle of the thing, it's the worry of where it might go from here, it's Chakra's distress, it's her heart-breaking almost-confession in the shower room, it's just how much worse she could get over the next few months if something doesn't change, and quickly…

It's only hair, only a couple of inches' worth of trimming on the other side that Alicia has been trying to persuade her to have cut off for the best part of six months anyway, but at the same time, it's so much more than that.

It's her daughter's mental state spiralling out of control like she swore she'd never allow, like she swore she'd protect her from, because maybe Helen the child psychiatrist has a point, maybe it's genetic, maybe Chakra was doomed from day one but she wouldn't have allowed it to happen, not like that, she wouldn't have, she's only seven…

She's still so little, her development could already be affected…

"Chakra," Alicia tries softly, runs the brush through her daughter's hair, sections it off, contemplates, tries to figure out the best way of concealing the differing lengths on each side. "I want to tell you something, and I want you to listen really carefully, okay?"

She settles on a French plait, parts Chakra's hair at the top, methodical, in need of a distraction. "Sit still for me, please. When… when I was pregnant with you… I think maybe I felt kind of… kind of... well, very similar to how you feel now, I suppose," Alicia tries. "You… so you know we were very worried about you, at first, don't you? I've told you that, right? Ethan and me… we thought you were going to have Huntington's Disease too, and that… well, that's probably a conversation for another day, okay, when you're a bit older," Alicia covers.

She picks up the brush again, sections off the next layer of hair, hands shaking a little more than she would like.

"But if you'd had Huntington's, like Ethan, there would have been… well, it would have meant that you might have… died… before you were born," she explains shakily. "I've told you this, haven't I? That's why I didn't know you were going to be alright until I was about six months pregnant with you, I had to wait for the hospital to run some special tests to see if you were healthy."

Chakra frowns, curious. "So if I'd had Huntington's, I might have died before I was born, or I might not have?"

"Yes… exactly," Alicia agrees. Now isn't the time, she tells herself, Chakra is still far, far too young to know the decision they had to make for her, to understand the horrific complexities of that choice.

"So I couldn't have died because I had exomphalos?"

"Well, yes, you… you might have. But it was very unlikely. I couldn't really see it like that, at the time…"

"Why?"

"Because I love you ever so much, and I knew there was a tiny chance you might… die. I couldn't bear knowing that I might lose you, even though I knew it wasn't very likely."

"Could I still die from it now?"

"No, you couldn't, sweetheart, you're completely fine now. That's why you had to have surgery when you were born, to make you better. But that's it, you're fine now, you just needed the surgery to correct it. But I didn't know any of that, at first… when I first found out I was pregnant, I just knew that you might have Huntington's, and I knew you might die before you were born. I had to wait quite a long time before I knew you were alright…"

"How long?"

"Two months. Well, a little bit longer than that. Probably more like two and a half. And I… I didn't cope with that very well. I thought… I thought that maybe if I pretended it all wasn't happening, just until I knew if you were going to be alright, I thought if I just tried to forget I was pregnant at all, it might be easier, not knowing. I didn't want to admit to myself that I loved you already, I thought it would just make it all too painful if I lost you. I thought it was better to ignore it all, just until I knew. Except it didn't work, I think it just made everything worse. And then when I found out that you were alright, it… it wasn't as easy to just stop pretending as I thought it would be. You… you know that… your body changes, when you're pregnant, don't you? Oh, okay, don't nod, Chakka, now's a really bad time to nod."

She straightens Chakra's head, adds in the last of her hair. "I'm almost done, okay? Give me another minute, just keep still for me. Anyway, so you… you know that, right? I don't need to explain the whole pregnancy thing to you?"

"The baby has to grow in your tummy until it's big enough to be born."

"Yep, that's exactly right, you're an expert already. I don't think we need to go over that one any time soon." _Not until you're, like, twenty and safely out of teenage pregnancy territory_ , Alicia adds to herself silently. _We can talk about how you actually make a baby when you're twenty._

She takes a deep breath, hands trembling as she slips the hairband off her wrist, wraps it around the end of Chakra's plait, pulls her back into her chest.

"Listen, I've never told anybody this before, sweetheart, okay? Not quite. So I'm trusting you. I thought, for a while, around the time I found out you didn't have Huntington's… I thought I was just going to be able to stop pretending I wasn't pregnant and tell everyone and everything would be perfect, then, but I was stupid, I should have realised it wasn't that simple. Everything was too messed up in my head by then. And I thought… I… you have to understand, I wanted you so much. I've always loved you, I would never lie to you about that. I've loved you since I first knew I was pregnant with you. I wasn't trying to pretend I wasn't pregnant because I didn't want you, I did it because I loved you so much I couldn't bear the thought of losing you, and it was the only way I could see to cope at the time."

"I love you, too." Chakra leans back into her chest, finally relaxed.

"You're sweet, aren't you? Look, what I'm trying to say, Chakra… I've told you Ethan… left, when I was about four months pregnant with you, haven't I? So this was all happening at the same time…"

"And you were sad?"

"Yes." She hugs her daughter tightly, still can't shake that panic, the fear that she could have lost her, heart breaks a little as Chakra tenses, wriggles.

She remembers that feeling only too well.

"… Yes, I was really sad," she tells her; terms that at least she'll understand, she's no real idea how much of what she's said Chakra will actually be able to take in, make sense of. "And… like I said, I really didn't deal with it all very well. And I… I went through a phase, when I… I thought I was… fat. I was pretty convinced. I wasn't eating, either, and… I think Auntie Bea and Auntie Ruby were quite worried about me, for a while. And I… I wasn't… fat, obviously, pregnancy's completely different. I just… I couldn't really remember that, I guess, for a while."

"Do you still think that now?"

"No. No, I don't, sweetheart, I haven't thought that for a long time. Not really, anyway. I think everyone has days when they feel a bit like that, but that's okay, that's normal. It's only when you feel like it all the time and you start… well, you start trying to do something about it, that it becomes a problem."

"So…" Chakra frowns, wriggles, shifts onto her lap and turns, sideways on, rests her head against Alicia's chest, clings. "So did it… go away?"

"Well… not exactly. I think I felt like that the whole time I was pregnant with you, I just got better at rationalising it. And… well, for a while, after I had you."

She's not sure it's the kind of thing that ever goes away, not really, but how can she tell her seven-year-old that?

"Look, what I'm trying to say, Chakra… I don't think it's a coincidence that I started feeling like that when I did. I think… I think if Ethan hadn't left when he did, if I hadn't been so worried about you… I think I probably wouldn't have felt like that."

"I'm sorry."

"Hey, no, no, no, Chakra, you have nothing to apologise for, darling. That's not why I'm telling you this. What I'm trying to say is… do you know what body image is?" Alicia asks carefully. "Did Helen talk to you about that, when you did the drawing with her?"

"Like, how you think you look. But sometimes it isn't how you really look."

"That's it. You're so articulate, aren't you, do you know what that means? It means you can explain things really clearly for someone your age. What I mean, Chakra," Alicia tells her softly, holds her just a little tighter. "Is that I… I don't think I would have ended up with the body image issues I did if I hadn't had so many other things going on inside my head. If I hadn't already felt so sad. Do you… do you think maybe, that's what might be happening to you?"

She's silent, at first, and for a few, horribly long moments, Alicia is convinced she's going to ignore the question completely, refuse to answer.

"Sometimes I feel like you and sometimes I don't," she says quietly.

She's trying to tell her something. She's trying to tell her something as best she knows how, and perhaps she can't make it any clearer than this, perhaps she just doesn't know how to put into words whatever it is that's setting her off, and why should she, Alicia reasons, she's only seven, she's far too little to have to know anything about this at all just yet.

"Okay," Alicia manages, eyes watering just a little. "Okay, sweetheart. I'm glad you felt you could tell me. It's not true, Chakra," she whispers, kisses her forehead. "I'm your mam, I wouldn't lie to you, _and_ I'm a children's doctor, so I know. You know why we keep having to go to see lots of different doctors, don't you? It's because you're too thin and we're really worried about you. You're not fat, you're not even close. So when you feel like that, you have to try to remember that it's all just in your head. Alright? You're beautiful. The last thing you need to worry about is the way you look. No one should ever be so upset about the way they look that they make themselves ill. Shall we take you back down to paeds, then?" she suggests. "Are you hungry?"

Chakra shakes her head.

"You sure? You haven't eaten anything since yesterday morning, have you? Do you think maybe you might be hungry if we found you some food? Sometimes I don't think I'm hungry, if I don't get a chance to eat all day, and then as soon as I do get a break and I can go and find some food, I realise I actually am."

"Do I have to eat by myself?"

"Is that what's making you anxious? We can have some lunch together? Yeah? Well, it's a little bit late, but we can call it that. So we'll find Auntie Bea, and we'll see if we can persuade her to bring us some food, shall we? And then maybe we can facetime Ethan in a bit, so he can see you're alright. What do you reckon?"

"If you and Ethan decide to be boyfriend and girlfriend again, am I going to have a little brother or sister?"

"Definitely not, I'm afraid. If you want a little brother or sister, you're going to have to wait and see if Auntie Bea or Auntie Ruby have a baby one day. Probably best not to ask them about it though, yeah? That's quite a personal thing. But no, there's zero chance of you getting an actual birth brother or sister."

"Why?"

"Because I can't have any more babies."

Her daughter frowns, curious. "Why not?"

"Well… because after you were born, I was really ill, and I had to have an operation to make me better. Do you know what a womb is? No? It's a special part of a woman's body that a baby can grow inside when you're pregnant. And when I had surgery, I had to have my womb removed. So that means I can't ever be pregnant again."

"Do you want more babies?"

"Why would I want any more when I already have you, hey? You're all I need."

Chakra nods, curls back into Alicia's chest. "Mammy?"

"Hmm?"

"When I'm older, will I look like you?"

"Well, you already look like me, don't you? So probably."

"But, like…" She trails off, shakes her head.

Alicia is suddenly reminded of that interrupted conversation last week, back in Glastonbury.

"You will be beautiful, and you will be able to do anything you put your mind to. Okay? Anything. Shall we get back to paeds, then?"

Chakra nods, shakily climbs to her feet, leans back into her mother.

"Oh, am I carrying you? Okay, then, fine, I'm carrying you." Alicia bends, picks Chakra up, waits for her to wrap her arms around her neck. "Are you still going to be this cuddly when you're a teenager? You are? Can I have that in writing, please?"

"Why do you want it in writing?"

"Oh, you'll find out when you're a teenager," Alicia tells her. "So is that a yes?"

"Is she yours, Dr Munroe?" Jurgita the paeds agency nurse asks as she holds open the door into the children's ED.

Alicia smiles gratefully, slips in through the door. "Yep, she's mine. This is Chakra. Chak, are you going to say hi to Jurgita?"

"Hi Jurgita." Chakra lifts her head wearily, clings onto her mother.

"She's quite tired, she's been through the wars a bit this week," Alicia explains apologetically. "Have you seen Dr Kinsella?"

"She wait in staffroom." Jurgita gestures along the corridor in the general direction of the paeds ED staffroom. "She off duty, yes?"

Alicia nods. "Do you mind telling her we're back? I'm going to get Chakra settled…"

"Of course. Of course, I tell her now."

"Do you work in here most of the time?" Chakra asks sleepily, as Alicia lowers her down onto the hospital bed.

"Probably, nowadays," Alicia agrees. "It's a close split between here and the main ED though. I'm going to check your temperature again, okay? Stay still for me."

"Are you allowed to do that here? Because you're a doctor, but you're my mam, too."

"Yeah, well, we've always been pretty good at bending the rules about relationship to patient in here," Alicia tells her, grimaces a little at the thermometer reading. "Shall we wrap these blankets around you? Alright, lean forward for me. Good girl."

Chakra obliges, glances over at the door onto the ward as it swings open, eyes lighting up. "Auntie Bea!"

Bea practically runs across the room to greet them, throws her arms around Chakra, pulls Alicia in on top.

They're silent for a while, all three of them, simply taking in each other's presence.

"I am so, so glad you're alright," Bea whispers. "We've been so worried about you, munchkin."

"Are you crying?" Chakra asks curiously.

"Just a little bit. Because I've got you something seriously awesome for your birthday, didn't want the money going down the drain, did I? And I suppose I missed you a little bit, too. Just a little bit, though," Bea teases her, wipes at her tears.

"You were never going to see me yesterday."

"No, but I was going to hang out with you today, remember? And anyway, you never know how much you can miss someone until they're gone. Is that a unicorn onesie?"

"Nana got it for me for Christmas." Chakra's expression tells all.

"And you don't like it?"

"I didn't say that."

"You don't need to, it's written all over your face. What's not to like about a unicorn onesie? Do you think they make them in my size?"

Chakra giggles.

"There you go, that made you smile. Oh, Alicia? Your dad and Martin are probably on their way down here. Well, they were in the paeds relative's room, I managed to get them to wait in there, but your dad was lurking outside the staffroom every couple of minutes and they went to get a coffee about ten minutes ago, so I think the moment they get back and they realise I'm not in the staffroom, they're going to be straight in here."

Alicia groans. "Okay. Okay, we'll deal with that, then, I guess. Do you want to see Granddad and Martin, Chakra?" she tries, forced brightness.

"Can we see them, but later?"

Normally, Alicia would tell her to be polite and feign enthusiasm, but for goodness sake, surely her dad could apply some common sense and realise Chakra is going to be utterly traumatised and exhausted?

It's not as if he and Martin have ever been a particularly active part of Chakra's life.

"Yep, we can do that. We'll say hi when they turn up, and then we'll explain you're really tired and we'll see them another time, okay? I know, sweetheart. I know," Alicia sighs, as Chakra leans against her in protest. I know. We need to get you some food and leave you to sleep for a bit, don't we?"

"I can do food," Bea offers. "You see your dad and Martin off, I'll get you guys food?"

"You're an angel, thank you. Chakra, look, I've got Elephant," Alicia tries to distract her, rummages through her bag. "There you go. So Auntie Elle is going to come and check on you again in a bit, okay, and then she'll decide if you're going to have to stay here overnight or not. But I'll stay here with you, if you do, it's alright. I'm not leaving you. And then we'll get you home, and we can…"

She trails off as the door swings open, her dad appearing in the doorway closely followed by Martin.

"Scooby! Oh, thank god. Is she alright?" her dad worries, rushing over to greet them.

That just says it all really, Alicia ponders, frustrated. Her dad has so little of a relationship with his own granddaughter that he's not even bothering to address her, speaking to Chakra through her instead; it's just typical.

"She's doing okay. Aren't you, Chakra?" She makes no attempt to greet her father, not with Chakra curled up on her lap, sleepy, too clingy to prise away. "She was hypothermic, when she was brought in, she was outside by herself in St Ann's woods all night so she's understandably a bit shaken, but she's going to be fine. But she's pretty exhausted. Bea did tell you to hold off visiting, I know that because I asked her to…"

"I just wanted to be sure my granddaughter's alright, there's nothing wrong with that, is there? You gave us a real scare, there, Chakra, darling."

Chakra clings onto Alicia, shy and unsure and overtired, the worst of possible combinations.

"Can I have a hug?" Howard tries. "Chakra?"

Reluctantly, Chakra wriggles out of Alicia's arms and the pile of blankets wrapped around her, embraces her grandfather.

Martin and Alicia glance at each other awkwardly, ran out of things to say to one another a long time ago.

"And have you promised your mam you're never going to scare us all like that again?"

"We've talked about that, Dad," Alicia tells him warningly, patience wearing thin. "We've already done that, she doesn't need you dragging it all up again."

"He just wants to be sure she's alright, Alicia," Martin tells her, as her dad lifts Chakra into his arms. "You know I used to work in education, children don't usually run away from school unless there's some kind of…"

"Yes, and we're on top of all that, thank you." She practically glares at them both, determined to shut this conversation down because she knows they're only trying to help but who do they think they are to just wade in like this, grandfather and… step-grandfather, or whatever, or not, what right do they think they have?

They barely even know her.

"Look, Chakra's really tired," Alicia tries. "Thank you for coming, I do appreciate it, but I specifically asked you not to because she really just needs to rest…"

"Alright. Alright, understood." Her dad places Chakra back down on the bed, expression hurt. "You two will have to come over whenever you're next off work though," he offers. "It's been far too long, I feel like I haven't seen you in forever." He glances at Alicia, strange expression she can't quite place. "Can I have a word, Scooby? Just before we go."s o

"Okay," Alicia agrees reluctantly. "Okay. You going to be alright, Chak? I'm just going to be a couple of minutes, okay, I'm only going to be in the corridor."

Her dad nods. "I'll see you soon then, Chakra, okay? Love you, darling. I'm glad you're alright."

Alicia trails behind them both out into the corridor, shuts the door behind them.

"What is it?"

"Have you…" her dad begins slowly, worriedly. "Have you noticed, she seems very thin?"

It takes all of Alicia's self-control to prevent herself from rolling her eyes and thanking him for stating the bloody obvious.

 **I can only apologise for the lack of Ethan in this one, there just wasn't space to fit him in. I promise the next few chapters will more than make up for it!**

 **Thank you to Guest and Lewisek18 for reviewing the last chapter- to my guest, I am so glad you picked up on the parallel between Alicia and Chakra, hopefully this one pulled it together effectively! It is always an absolute pleasure to read your reviews.**

 **I also have a new oneshot set between Atoms and this story, which may turn into a series of oneshots if anyone is interested. It's called Dante in the Midsts, and I would really appreciate your feedback on that one if you decide to read it- and please feel free to tell me if you hate it!**

 **I'm currently in full-on sequel planning mode, and I have a couple of questions for you about that, because ultimately if I write a sequel, I want it to be something you guys will enjoy:**

 **1) Do you like Bea/would you be happy for Bea to feature slightly more?**

 **2) Where would you like Alicia and Ethan to be in their relationship by the end of this story?**

 **3) On a slightly random note- if you know of any school play scripts or musicals about Boudicca, please tell me! I've only found The Warrior Queen so far, which wasn't quite what I wanted. Or equally, if you have any other ideas for a potential school play kind of thing that might appeal to Chakra, please do suggest them!**

 **I'm also struggling with Atoms at the moment, so if you're patiently awaiting an Atoms update and there is anything you would like to see in that story, feel free to let me know!**

 **As ever, reviews on this chapter would be wonderful, please do let me know if you're still enjoying this story.**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	30. Chapter 30

**This chapter is for anyone who has ever been bullied for their hair colour, because red hair can be beautiful too. (Just look at Michelle's!)**

 **Chapter 30**

 _"Alicia? Alicia, can I borrow you for a moment, before you go?"_

 _Alicia pauses, comes to a halt at the end of the corridor as Charlie calls out to her from the admin station._

 _"Will it take long? Only I've got to pick up Chakra from my mam's, she's going out tonight…"_

 _"I'll keep it to the point," Charlie tells her, beckons for her to follow him into his office. "Why don't you sit down?"_

 _"I thought you said this wasn't going to take…"_

 _"Alicia." Charlie's voice is gentle, soothing, but uncompromising. "Take a seat."_

 _He waits until she's lowered herself into the chair opposite his desk before he leans forward, careful, considered, as though he's spent the best part of this shift trying to work out the best way to tackle this, whatever he's about to tell her._

 _"Have you had any contact with Ethan?" Charlie asks cautiously. "Since he resigned?"_

 _His question takes Alicia so completely by surprise that she freezes for a moment, can't think, can't concentrate, can't breathe, almost, just for a moment, until she composes herself._

 _"What? No… no I haven't heard from him since… since the accident… when I was pregnant with… Chakra…"_

 _Where is he going with this?_

 _"Alicia. Listen, I… I don't know how much you know," Charlie begins slowly. "One of my friends from training has just retired, relocated to Glastonbury with his wife. He's volunteering at a place called the Avalon Clinic, it's a specialist residential unit for patients with Huntington's Disease." He pauses for a moment, falls silent, as though trying to gage Alicia's reaction. "You already know, don't you?"_

 _"I…" Alicia stammers._

 _Bea, Ruby, and her mam. And Chakra, of course, but that's different, on so many levels. Ethan had handled Mrs Beauchamp long before that awful day._

 _Four people; that's all she's ever told, the only people in the world she's ever admitted this to before now, save the odd comment in passing to people she'll never see again, people Ethan will never know._

 _"I knew he had Huntington's, yes," Alicia admits shakily. "He told me… it would have been four weeks before he left… he had to, then, he was starting to develop symptoms, he'd been hiding it for a long time, it was worse than we thought… but I didn't… so he's in this clinic? In Glastonbury?"_

 _Her heart is racing unlike anything she's experienced for eight years, now, and suddenly she's hot and cold all at once, dizzy…_

 _"Yes," Charlie tells her gently. "Yes, he's an inpatient at the clinic. Do you want some water?"_

 _"Thank you…"_

 _"It's alright. I know this is a bit of a shock. It was Simon- my friend- do you remember Simon? He did some agency cover for us, it must have been a few months before Ethan left, but he worked with him rather a lot during that time, I think. He doesn't think Ethan's recognised him, but he mentioned it to me, I think trying to clarify for himself that they definitely worked together here, more than anything, Simon's memory isn't what it used to be. But yes, Ethan's there. Simon seems to think he's been there for about eight years, so all things considered…"_

 _Alicia closes her eyes._

 _"Why didn't you tell us, Alicia?" Charlie asks softly. "We could have helped, we could have supported you…"_

 _It's all starting to make sense for him now; Alicia can see it in his face._

 _"Ethan didn't want anyone to know, he was embarrassed, I told him it was nothing to be ashamed of, obviously, of course I did, but he wouldn't…"_

 _"I didn't mean that. I meant afterwards, after he left…"_

 _"It still wouldn't have been fair, whether he was here or not, Ethan didn't want anyone to know… I had to hide it…"_

 _"You had Chakra tested, didn't you?" Charlie realises. "That's why you left it so long to tell us…"_

 _Alicia sighs. "We were stupid… both of us were stupid, really. I didn't even realise I was pregnant until I was twelve weeks, I was too preoccupied with my senior exams, and it was just the one time, I… god, this is embarrassing… there was only ever one time, I never could, after Eddie, it was only once, I think Ethan must have thought there was no need to bring it all up while there was no chance of me getting pregnant, and then we were stupid the once and I think we both just thought we'd be fine, if we even thought about it at all. I told him I was pregnant, and he went so pale I thought he was going to pass out and then he told me he had Huntington's Disease, and he'd just made an appointment to see a specialist because he thought he was starting to develop symptoms."_

 _"Oh, Alicia…"_

 _"I didn't really have a choice after that, did I, I could see how much he was suffering already, with the emotional side of it all, if nothing else, I couldn't bring a baby into the world if they would have to suffer like that too, it's bad enough Ethan has to go through it, I couldn't inflict it on my own child, not when I had a choice. I was supposed to see genetics again the week I fell down the stairs, but then I was stuck in this place, and Ethan was gone… genetics couldn't schedule me in for amniocentesis until I was twenty weeks, after that, everything got delayed, and then I had to wait for the results and I finally thought I could let myself get attached and the exomphalos came up on the ultrasound, it took me a while to come to terms with that… and I know, I know I was enormously pregnant by the time I told you all, I know it was beyond obvious and I still kept snapping at you all over it, I must have been a total nightmare to be around for those few months and I'm so sorry…"_

 _"You don't need to apologise," Charlie tells her firmly. "No one never held it against you, for what it's worth, we knew you were hurting. I wish you'd felt you could tell us," he sighs. "I understand why you didn't, but I wish you'd felt you could talk about it."_

 _"But he's… he's in this clinic, Ethan's in this clinic in Glastonbury… he's alright? Well, not alright, obviously, but you know what I mean…"_

 _"I don't know," Charlie sighs. "I don't know, I didn't like to ask. Shall I give you the address?" he offers, reaches for a post-it note as Alicia glances at the clock on the wall anxiously. "Then you can think about what you want to do. Sorry. Sorry, I know you need to go and get Chakra…"_

 _Alicia shakes her head. "It's alright. It's alright, I'll be fine… Charlie? Do you think we could just keep this between us?"_

 _"Of course." Charlie hands over the post-it note. "Does… does Chakra know?" He asks her cautiously._

 _Alicia hesitates, stands to leave, under pressure, twenty minutes left to battle rush hour traffic and relieve her mam of grandmother duties in time for her night out._

 _"She knows as much as she can really be expected to understand just yet," Alicia says at last. "I've always just told her that Daddy was really ill, before she was born, she knows he's only going to keep getting worse, she thinks he's just too ill to see her…"_

 _She's going to be sick, she's going to be sick…_

 _"Look, I've got to go, I've got to go and get Chakra…"_

 _"Of course," Charlie nods. "But Alicia, listen, if you need someone to talk to…"_

 _Alicia pauses in the doorway, eyes watering. "Thank you, Charlie," she whispers. "Thank you."_

"Do you like that one, `Chakra? That looks nice and warm."

Chakra nods, yawns a little, wraps her arms around herself.

"I know, sweetheart, I know, we'll get you home right after this. So you want that one? Yeah? Which colour?"

"Does pink look ugly with ginger hair?" Chakra asks doubtfully, glances along the clothing rack.

"What?" Alicia frowns. "Pink looks beautiful with ginger hair. Do you want to try the pink on? Okay, take that one off, then, I'll put it back on the rack for you and you can try the pink."

She's treating her like a baby, Alicia knows she is, but she's so relieved to have her back in one piece she just can't help herself, she's still so delicate… "There you go. You look gorgeous, Chak. I don't tell you that anywhere near enough, do I?"

"Promise?"

"Promise. I wouldn't lie to you, sweetheart. If you want the pink, you can. I knew I'd convert you to pink one day."

"Thank you."

"You're very welcome. We need to get you a new coat, we can't have you walking around shivering until summer. You're only half Geordie, aren't you, biologically, I think you missed out on my cold weather immunity genes."

 _And you've basically got no body fat at this point_ , Alicia sighs to herself hopelessly.

"Is that a real thing?"

"What, the Geordies don't feel the cold thing? It's definitely a real thing, ask Nana, she'll tell you. But you're exempt, you're only half Geordie and you weren't born in Newcastle, were you? That means you're allowed to need a proper coat in sub twelve degrees."

"What happened to my old coat?"

"I think the police lost it, when they were looking for you," Alicia covers guiltily. "But it's alright, isn't it, we'll forgive them. And it means you get a nice new pink one. Are you going to carry it for me? Good girl." She places her hands upon Chakra's shoulders, steers her over towards the tills, overprotective. "And we'll get them to cut the tag out for you at the till, so you can put it straight on, okay? And then we just need to go into TESCO quickly, but we'll be really, really quick, and then we can go home and Auntie Ruby's going to bring us round some dinner, and we can watch a film or something, yeah? How does that sound?"

"Can we watch Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone?"

"Of course we can. We never got around to watching it after you finished the book, did we? We definitely need to watch it before you get to the end of the second book. Right, Chakra, are you going to put that on the counter so we can pay for it? And what do you say?"

"Please can you cut the tag out so I can wear it now?"

"I can." The shop assistant smiles awkwardly, clearly not particularly experienced with children, turns to Alicia. "Cash or card?"

"Card, please. Chakra, are you going to do the magic card trick for me? Yeah? Can you reach?"

She pulls Chakra into the corner beside the tills once they've paid, holds her new coat out for her to slip into as though she's still tiny, resists the temptation to pick her up and carry her out of the shop, hold her close, never let her go again, but she can't; she isn't a baby and this isn't about her, Alicia tells herself, she can't wrap her up in cotton wool and protect her forever, just because she's so selfishly, irrationally afraid of losing her again.

"Mammy?" Chakra asks tentatively, Alicia reaching for her hand as they walk towards the exit. "When we go to the hairdressers tomorrow, please can I dye my hair like yours?"

"Ummm, no you can't. You're seven, you're far, far too young to dye your hair…" Alicia trails off.

Chakra's eyes are filled with a strange sadness, self-consciousness, pain, almost, and Alicia can't shake the events of yesterday morning, the events that led to this whole nightmare in the first place.

Chakra is never, ever going back to that school, Alicia promises herself.

Not if she can help it.

"You can do whatever you want to your hair when you're eighteen and you can pay for it with your own money, okay? You can make your own decisions about this kind of thing when you're a grown up. But I'm not letting you dye your hair while you're still a child and I have a say, and do you know why? Because your hair is the most beautiful colour, and you'll never quite get it back to that colour again if you dye it. You're so lucky, I wish my hair was like yours. I did try dying mine like yours and Auntie Bea's when I was in med school, but it never came out the way I wanted it to, you can't get your colour in a box of hair dye. You have beautiful hair, and anyone who tells you otherwise is just being mean because deep down, they're really, really jealous."

"Sophia and Evie said…" Chakra glances down, shrugs.

"What did Sophia and Evie say?" Alicia presses. "You know you can tell me, right? I'm on your side, sweetheart, I always will be, okay? And if… if you tell me these things, that's going to really help me make sure you don't have to go back to that school unless things get better."

She's suddenly reminded of Hannah Carter, the girl in her class with striking red hair they'd all teased throughout the seven years of primary school, not sure she's ever felt quite so disgusted with herself.

"They say things like… carrot top. And ginger minger. And that I don't have a soul."

"Well, that's just stupid, isn't it? Of course you have a soul, that's just a really stupid, nasty joke kids make when they're secretly jealous. Do they say anything else, Chakra?" she tries carefully. "Maybe… maybe about other things?"

Chakra shakes her head, though there's something about the way she can't quite meet her mother's eyes, something about the way she seems to fold into herself, shut down, that prevents Alicia from quite believing her.

"Okay," she says softly. "Okay. If anyone ever says that kind of thing again, you walk away and you tell an adult. You promise? Nobody has the right to upset you like that. Nobody. It's all horrible made-up rubbish. Come on, then, shall we get this over with so we can go home and collapse on the sofa? I know, darling, I know, we really aren't going to be long."

"Do you have to work tomorrow?"

"Nope, Mrs Beauchamp's given me a couple of days off to spend with you." Alicia throws items into the shopping basket, conscious that poor Chakra is exhausted and the last thing she wants is to be dragged around the supermarket, tries to run through her mental list of things they've run out of. "Okay. Okay, let's go around here, then."

She holds her daughter's hand tightly, steers her round into the toys section. "You can choose one thing, anything you want, as long as it isn't too expensive. Alright? Just this once."

She knows she really shouldn't, but just a few hours earlier she was so convinced she'd lost her forever, and it's not like she makes a habit of this.

Alicia glances at the fluffy pastel dragon placed into her shopping basket after a short pause of consideration, label reveals it's one of those beanbag things, microwavable heat pack. "Have you gone with that just because you're still feeling cold?" She feels Chakra's forehead, paranoid, can't seem to stop herself from worrying.

"It's a dragon," Chakra tells her, as though this alone explains everything, but Alicia doesn't miss the gentle shaking of her shoulders.

"You'll feel better once you've had some proper sleep," she promises. "I'll put the heating on full when we get home, okay? Just for you. We're nearly done, we just need to go down here. Wait next to me, please." She mentally scans the selection of nicotine gum, turns one of the packets over with one hand, other resting gently on her daughter's shoulder, reads the back. "Okay. Do you know what these are?"

Chakra shakes her head.

"No? They're special chewing gum that help you quit smoking." She places the pack in the basket, squeezes Chakra's shoulder. "I'm not going to go back on my promise again, Chakka, alright? I really do mean it this time."

She doesn't think she needs them, not really. Or she would like to think she doesn't, at least; it's not as though she's ever been a proper, regular smoker.

It's more about the symbolism; a peace offing, of sorts, a gesture that Chakra can understand.

She needs her to know that she's sorry, but it isn't just about that.

She's sorry she hasn't yet worked out how to fix whatever it is that's going on inside her head.

"So we'll go home, we'll watch Harry Potter, and then we'll get an early night," Alicia tells her, chatting to her mindlessly. "You'll feel much better once you've had some proper sleep, you'll see. Hospitals aren't much fun when you're the patient, are they?"

"Mammy, I can do my seatbelt by myself."

"You can, can't you?" Alicia agrees. "Sorry. And then we can do something fun together on Friday, okay? Once you're feeling a bit better. You can choose. Let's go home then, sweetheart, come on."

She turns her car key in the ignition, flicks on the headlights as the CD player kicks in.

"Do we _have_ to have Britney Spears again?"

"Hey, don't push it, missy."

"I'll tell everyone you work with you like singing along in the car?"

"Oh, that's low, that. That's seriously low, you wouldn't dare."

Chakra practically throws herself at Ruby, the moment Alicia has the front door open, staggering energy for a child who until the moment the doorbell rang was curled up on the sofa feeling sorry for herself.

"Auntie Ruby!"

"Oh my goodness, I think this must be the best welcome I've ever had into anybody's house." Ruby catches her awkwardly, picks her up, lets the carrier bag in her hand drop to the floor. "I am so glad to see you, we've all been very worried about you. Are you feeling a bit better?"

Alicia smiles gratefully at Ruby, mouths her apologies.

"I did feel really cold, and strange, like I was dreaming. But now I just feel cold. But not really, really cold."

"Well, that's good. It sounds like you're definitely on the mend. I thought of you on Sunday, do you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because I was at my mum's for the weekend, I was helping her clear out her attic, and can you guess what I found? We were talking about it when you stayed at mine the other week, do you remember?"

"A Series of Unfortunate Events?"

"I did. So we'll have to make a start on the first one when you come over next, won't we? I think you'll like it."

"How many are there?"

"How many books? Thirteen. So you're just going to have to come for lots of sleepovers at mine, aren't you? If you like them, anyway."

"Auntie Ruby, which Hogwarts house are you?"

"Oh, has Mummy been introducing you to Harry Potter? Ravenclaw. Mummy and Gem made me take the sorting hat test when we all lived together, that was probably a year or so before you were born. So have you done yours, too?"

"Gryffindor."

"Although how that works, I have no idea, given she's basically a mini Luna," Alicia teases.

"Who's Luna?"

"Oh, you'll find out in a couple of books' time. Everybody loves Luna."

"Which Hogwarts House is Ethan?"

"Hufflepuff. Definitely Hufflepuff. Come on, then, are you going to let go of Auntie Ruby so she can go home and get some rest? Tell you what." Alicia bends, picks up the carrier bag. "Can you go and put that in the kitchen for me, please? And then do you think you could do the cutlery as well, yeah? Kitchen table? Good girl."

They both watch her as she skips off along the hallway, down the stairs into the kitchen, and then Ruby pulls Alicia into a tight hug, rubs her back.

"You okay?" she whispers.

Silently, Alicia shakes her head.

"She's safe, Alicia. I know it's not that simple, I know that, but at least she's safe. She's in one piece, she's safe, you can't beat yourself up."

"She keeps trying to tell me something, Ruby." She fights back the tears furiously, closes her eyes in despair. "She keeps trying to tell me something, I'm sure she does, and it's like she doesn't quite know how to explain it… Sorry. Sorry, I need to pull myself together, she'll notice…"

Ruby smiles sympathetically. "Text me, if you want to talk. Or if you just want me to try and cheer you up a bit, or take your mind off things, or whatever you need. I'm here. Let me help."

"Chakra?" Alicia calls softly. "Chakra, you awake?"

Chakra yawns, unimpressed, wriggles, curled up on the sofa with her head resting on Alicia's lap. "Is it night time?"

"It's as good as. For your age, anyway. Shall we get you up to bed? You've had a traumatic couple of days, haven't you, you must be totally exhausted." She waits for Chakra to sit up, heart sinks a little as she curls back into her side, closes her eyes, arms around her waist.

"Mammy…"

"Hey, I know. I think you're a bit overtired, aren't you? But that's okay, we're not in a rush to get up tomorrow. Where do you want to sleep tonight?"

"Your bed?"

"Alright. I need you to go and brush your teeth and put your pyjamas on, okay, I'm just going to lock up. I'll be right behind you. Go on."

She should be trying to coax her out of this habit, Alicia knows she should, but she just wants to keep her close tonight.

"Too tired."

"I know, but the sooner you do that, the sooner you can go to sleep, sweetheart. Putting it off is just going to make you later and later getting to bed, isn't it?" She nudges Chakra towards the edge of the sofa, guides her towards the stairs. "Shall I put your dragon back in the microwave?"

"Yes, please."

"Alright, I'll do that now. Have you named… him… yet?"

"Gawain."

"Gawain?"

"Like King Arthur's knight Gawain and the Green Knight."

"I should have guessed that, shouldn't I? I don't think I know that story."

"It's also a really famous poem for grown-ups, Mammy. Kerry told me that."

"It is? Well, I think we already knew I'm not exactly the most cultured person on the planet. You can tell me all about it in the morning, okay? Then I can sound intelligent the next time literature comes up at one of the medical balls Mrs Beauchamp makes me go to. Right, I'm putting Gawain the dragon in the microwave, I'll be up in a minute."

"Mammy, what do I do with my tooth?"

 _Shit._

"Oh… that's a good point, Chakra, that's a really good point. I've got it in my handbag, I'll bring it up for you in a minute. I think we need to put it in an envelope, or something, so it can't fall down the back of the bed. And then you need to put it under your pillow, and then the tooth fairy will come and collect it overnight… whenever she does her Holby rounds."

"Do I have to write her a note?"

"… No, no, not this time." Chakra's eyes are closing again already. "I expect she's heard all about how… how we nearly lost you, fairies have a way of knowing these things. I'm sure she won't mind if you just leave the tooth this time, you can always write her a note when you lose your next one. Go on. I won't be long."

It's only as she approaches the front door to double bolt it and pull the chain across that Alicia realises she's already done it, must have seen to it when Ruby left.

She hasn't done that for years now, not since she came back from Manchester mid-breakdown, panicked and kicked Gem and Rash out.

Old habits, it would seem, die hard.

Chakra is already curled up on the other side of her bed when Alicia emerges from the bathroom, eyelids heavy, fluffy elephant sat on the pillow.

"Mammy?"

"I'm here, sweetheart, it's alright. We'll skip reading for tonight, shall we?"

"What time is it?" Chakra asks sleepily, as Alicia turns off the main light, pulls back the covers.

"Just before seven. So it's not really that early for you, is it? Not massively, anyway. You've had an awful two days by anyone's standards, I'm amazed you've stayed awake as long as you have. So here's your tooth." She hands over the envelope she managed to find after much frantic searching in the drawers in the hallway, bright yellow, borrowed from a now-useless birthday card. "You need to put it under your pillow, and then you need to go straight to sleep. And then we'll have to see if it's gone in the morning, won't we?"

"Are you staying here?" There's a frightened edge to Chakra's voice now, and it's so easy to forget, Alicia realises; she seems so relatively fine now, it's so easy to forget that she spent last night alone in the middle of the woods, frightened... she must have been terrified the man in the car she'd run from was going to come back…

Alicia curses herself for not realising it before.

"Yep, I'm staying here with you. I promise. If you wake up and I'm not here, I'll just be in the bathroom, okay? I'm staying right here with you. Can I have a hug? I love you so, so much," she whispers, holds Chakra tightly against her chest. "I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't got you back. Go to sleep, Chakka. You're alright. I've got you. Everything's going to be alright now, sweetheart."

She holds her for the next half hour or so, long after her breathing has levelled out and it's clear she's fast asleep.

She doesn't want to let her go. She nearly lost her, came so horribly close, and now she can't bear to let go of her, as though if she just holds her close, the way she did when she was tiny, overly clingy and just wanted to be held constantly, maybe it will work again, maybe it will fix it all for the both of them.

It won't, of course.

Rationally, Alicia knows that.

She wants to fix this all for her so badly, but how can she, when she isn't even completely sure she knows what there is to fix?

She untangles herself from Chakra reluctantly, once she's satisfied she's not waking up any time soon, reaches for her phone on the bedside table, types out a message to Robyn.

 _Help! How much does the tooth fairy leave nowadays? Am clueless x_

She brings up her recent calls, thumb hovering over Ethan's name for a few moments, braces herself.

She's going to be honest with him, completely honest, from now on, Alicia promises herself.

No more secrets.

They're going to do this together.

"Alicia?" Ethan picks up the phone on the first ring, as though he's been sat with his mobile all this time waiting, just waiting. "How is everything there?"

Instantly, Alicia is wracked with guilt.

She texted him when Chakra was discharged, but that was a good four hours ago now, she's left him waiting for an update all this time…

"She's alright," Alicia assures him. "I'm so sorry, I was going to put her on the phone to you once I got her home but she's been flaked out in front of the telly all evening, she was in bed before seven…"

"Hey, it's okay. I assumed you were busy with her, it's fine. She's much more important. But she's… she's alright?"

"She'll be fine." Alicia watches Chakra's face carefully, just to be sure she's still asleep. "She's just exhausted, really, keeps complaining she's cold, but her temperature's back within the realms of normal now, thank god. No lasting damage. She ate her dinner; I didn't tell you, did I, she had a bit of a meltdown earlier, in Paeds, she… well, we had the eating disorder conversation. More or less, anyway, I don't think she really knows how to explain, but… well, she confirmed what I thought. But she ate her dinner, didn't even protest, I mean it just doesn't make sense, does it…"

She sighs heavily. "Sorry. Anyway, she's alright. No lasting damage, not from this, anyway. I think she's a bit freaked out, I didn't have time to tell you, before, I had to go and sort her out… She was trying to get to the ED, she lost it with school after Sophia cut her hair, I think, who can blame her…"

"Sophia?"

"Girl in her class, nasty little bully who gets away with murder. I knew it would be Sophia, I just knew, she's made all sorts of mean comments in the past but nothing's ever been serious enough for her school to bother doing anything about it, by their standards. She managed to fit in more hair comments, by the sounds of what Chakra was telling me earlier, she's always so reluctant, it's a bit of a struggle trying to get anything out of her about school… why do kids feel it's okay to make fun of ginger hair?"

"I don't know, because they're jealous?"

"That's what I told Chakra. At least we're consistent, right?" Alicia sighs. "Anyway, sorry. I'm making such a mess of this…"

"It's alright. It's alright, I can't even imagine what you've gone through in the last forty-eight hours…"

"But you have, too…"

"Yes," Ethan agrees. "Yes, but it's different. I love her, of course I do, I love her more than I ever could have imagined. But I didn't raise her for the last seven years. I didn't even know she existed a month ago. So yes, I've been imagining the worst too, it's been awful, but it doesn't compare to what you've been through, and don't even think about arguing with me. I don't have the same bond with her that you do. It's different. And I… I hope that one day, it won't be like that, but right now, it is. So you don't have to apologise, Alicia. Just take your time. It's alright."

"Thank you," Alicia whispers. "Sorry, I… I was getting to… she ran away from school because she wanted to get to the ED, it was my fault, I should never have sent her into school yesterday, but CAMHS made it so clear…"

"I know, darling, I know, we've been through that. It wasn't your fault, you were only doing what you thought was right. You weren't responsible for her when she went missing, that's completely on her school, you should have been able to trust them to look after her. So Chakra was trying to get to the ED…"

"Yeah, she…" Alicia shudders involuntarily, free hand rests over Chakra's sleeping form, just to be sure she's there. "She… I told you Dylan found her in St Ann's Woods, didn't I, he lost Dervla, they were together… anyway, when Chakra came to in resus, she said she'd been walking to the ED and a man pulled up next to her along the A1, tried to persuade her to get into his car…"

"Shit, Alicia…"

"I know. I know, thank god she was too sensible for that, he tried to tell her he worked with me and I'd sent him to pick her up, but she saw right through that, ran off. She's still a bit confused by the whole thing, you know how it goes with hypothermia, she doesn't remember an awful lot. She thinks she ran, because she was scared he was going to follow her, I guess she must have thought the woods were a safe bet, I don't know, but then she got lost, couldn't find her way out again… she must have been so scared, Ethan, it doesn't even bear thinking about, does it? She's so little…"

"But she's alright now," Ethan reminds her gently. "She's alright now, I've seen you with her, there's no doubt she feels loved. She'll be absolutely fine, she'll probably be over it faster than we are. I know… I know that's not all we have to worry about with her at the moment, but it's something. Did the police catch the guy who…?"

"No, not that they've told me. I'm not so worried about that, to be honest, not compared to everything else at least. I'm not letting her out of my sight again until she's at least twenty…"

Ethan laughs softly on the other end of the phone. "You do realise she's probably going to want to go to university a couple of years before that, right?"

"I don't care. She's just going to have to teach herself Anglo-Saxon off the internet and dig up the back garden in search of Celtic artefacts, or whatever she decides she wants to do eventually, and give herself a head start before she goes off to uni. I'm not compromising. Or if she decides on med school, she can take me with her." Alicia sighs in despair. "Although I shouldn't get ahead of myself, she's not even going to finish primary school, at this rate… "

"She will, Alicia. She will. She's got, what, another three and a bit years left until secondary? Year three, right? I don't even know my own daughter's school year…"

"No, no, you're right, year three," Alicia tells him quickly, overcome with an urgent need to reassure him. "I know. I know that. It's just so hard to think like that, when she's so…"

"I know. I know, I totally get that. I wish I could… Listen… I know my ability to actually be useful is limited, I know I haven't exactly been father of the year… well, ever. But if there's anything I can do…"

"Ethan?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm going to be child-free next Tuesday night," she tells him now, heart racing a little, half-afraid he's going to reject her. "Bea's taking Chakra to London for Celtic Woman…"

"Celtic what?"

"Celtic Woman, it's like the musical version of river dance, it's an Irish thing. Not sure it's that big in Ireland, though. It's Bea's early birthday present for Chakra, she doesn't know yet, it's a surprise. They're going to go and sing along to Irish folk songs and weird Celtic inspired stuff, it's best to not ask too many questions and leave them to it. Chakra pretty much worships the ground Auntie Bea walks on, she got her hooked on it before I could stop her. But anyway. Mrs Beauchamp's managed to get Chakra an appointment with a private child psych she knows from UCL for Tuesday, we're going to do the whole thing in one go, as it's in London. But Bea's already booked a hotel, she was going to be taking Chakra by herself, originally. So… what I'm saying… I'm going to be child-free on Tuesday night, and London's on the way to Glastonbury, coming via Holby… I could book a hotel down there instead, I could come and see you… I mean, only if you want to…"

Heart in her mouth, she awaits his reply, doesn't quite dare admit to herself how much this means to her.

"I'd like that," Ethan tells her, and Alicia doesn't need to see him to know his face has relaxed into a smile. "I'd like that a lot."

 **I wasn't going to give you this chapter just yet, but it's been a rough few days for us Ethan/Alicia shippers and I fear it's only going to get rougher, so consider this my gift to you all- and there will be lots of Alicia/Ethan in the next chapter, promise. Now also seems like a fitting moment to answer a question I've been asked a few times lately- I will continue writing this universe as long as you're still enjoying it!**

 **Thank you as ever Casfics, Guest, Katie and 20BlueRoses for taking the time to review. You were all particularly lovely on the last chapter, and definitely the reason I've managed to write at lightning speed this week! (And thank you to you wonderful people who gave me my Atoms inspiration backTo my Ruby anon- I hope you enjoyed this one. Ruby's relationship with Chakra and how it might pan out was surprisingly difficult to gage! Ruby heavy chapter coming up next.**

 **There is a hint of something I'm thinking of writing to link this week's upcoming episode into this universe woven into this chapter- _'She hasn't done that for years now, not since she came back from Manchester mid-breakdown, panicked and kicked Gem and Rash out.'_** **I think I've said before that Atoms and Avalon are intended to be read as part of the same story arch should you wish to- although absolutely optional! I have quite a lot of extra time to write over the next few days, so if you would be interested in that, if you have any requests or if you would particularly like me to concentrate on one of my existing stories, please do let me** **know! And we will brave this together, my lovelies.**

 **Reviews, as ever, are my favourite thing, and you wonderful people are honestly the reason I have too many story ideas at the moment. Thank you for all your support.**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter 31**

 **25 weeks**

"How much longer are you going to carry on like this, Alicia?" Elle sighs.

Alicia slams her locker door shut, shoots her a death glare, arguably a little more aggressively than she should have. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Alicia… Listen, it's one thing to hide it for the first few weeks, but this has gone beyond…"

"I'm not listening to this, Elle." Scrubs in one hand, Alicia storms into the changing area, locks herself in the nearest cubicle. "I'm not 'carrying on' like anything, I've got absolutely nothing to say."

"I was chatting to Rosie from radiology the other day, she mentioned that you've been avoiding the x-ray room for weeks…"

"That's none of your business…"

"No… no, I'm sorry, it's not," Elle agrees.

She must be right outside the door now, judging by the proximity of her voice, and Alicia knows she doesn't mean it, that she only wants to help, but she just feels so intimidated…

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. But… Alicia, listen. Please, sweetie. I remember being pregnant only too well, it's not always the easiest thing to go through at the best of times…"

Alicia pinches the bridge of her nose, closes her eyes, composes herself for a moment before she pulls off her jumper, reaches for her scrubs- the ones she managed to raid from the storeroom at the end of a Sunday nightshift when no one was around, larger than hers to the point that they seem to conceal it all a little more effectively, yet not so much so that it's obvious what she's done, or so she hopes.

It's all getting so complicated.

"Well, I wouldn't know anything about that."

She was half thinking about telling them all today.

That's the irony of it.

Things have been a little better, this past week. Not massively so; it's going to be a painfully slow process, getting her head around it all. Alicia has accepted that. She managed to cope with shopping in the maternity section over the weekend, and she's fully aware that it really shouldn't be something to be proud of, should just be normal, that she shouldn't even give it a second thought, but for her, after finding it all so painfully impossible to cope with over the last few weeks, even since Ethan left, it feels like a major victory.

She couldn't even look at herself in a mirror a week ago, pre-meltdown, and still Alicia doesn't feel any of the excitement she's apparently supposed to at the prospect of looking even more like a beached whale than she's already convinced she does come fifteen weeks' time, but at least it's now tolerable.

She would never admit it, but Bea and Ruby were right. It does make her feel better, having jeans that actually fit her, even if she's still living in oversized jumpers and Ethan's t shirts he left behind in her wardrobe.

She feels better about it all, but she doesn't quite feel ready to announce it to the world visually, not just yet.

Not when she isn't forced to thanks to unforgiving hospital scrubs, at least.

She really had thought about breaking the news today, but this wasn't how she wanted it to go. She has her twenty-five-week appointment this morning, and she'd planned to get through that, hope and pray it won't be as awful as the last one, hand over to Bea and let her gather everyone together in the pub after work, do it then.

She hasn't thought as far ahead as how she would have made the announcement, but she would have, she really would have.

She just wanted to get through the day without anyone trying to force it out of her again.

"Oh, Alicia…"

She wants to help. Alicia does know that. It's so clear from Elle's tone that all she wants is to help, but she doesn't understand and she's getting it all wrong, she's just making it all worse…

"Listen, sweetie, I know you've had an awful few weeks, I know this must all be impossibly difficult. I understand that…"

"You don't understand anything!" Alicia snaps. She smoothens her scrub top over her bump, grimaces a little, because she didn't look this pregnant last time she was in work, before she came down with the flu, she knows she didn't, that was before Bea and Ruby insisted on forcing her to eat and stay hydrated.

She just wanted to get through to the end of her shift. That was all she wanted, she just wanted to get through to the end of her shift and tell them all on her own terms, she can't do it like this…

"Alright," Elle tries gently. "Alright. So talk to me, Alicia. Talk to me. You can't go on like this. You're going to have a baby in, what, June…"

"Why is everyone so convinced they know… for god's sake, I don't know what Robyn's been telling everyone, but I'm sick of it, I'm sick of all the gossiping behind my back, I know Noel's doing his wannabe bookkeeping act again… I can't do this…"

"Alicia? Alicia, it's alright. I didn't mean to upset you, sweetie, I'm sorry. I'm just worried about you, that's all, I'm worried about both of you…"

"Will you please just stop?" Tentatively, just a little panicked, she unlocks the cubicle door, heads for her locker, throws her clothes into the back, grabs her stethoscope, heads for the door. "I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it, I just want…"

"Alicia!"

"Leave me alone!"

She practically runs out along the corridor towards reception, just wants to get away, just wants it to be over, all of it.

She wants her baby. She wants her baby desperately, she just hates this part, she just wants to skip this part…

"Dr Munroe," Noel greets her as she passes reception, Marty smirking at her beside him. "Will today be the day? Only you really can't keep expecting us to believe that you've just had too many…"

"Leave it!" Ruby snaps firmly, out of nowhere; Alicia hadn't even realised she was in reception until that moment. "All of you, just leave it! Can't you see how uncomfortable you've been making her feel lately? It's pathetic! It's childish and it's pathetic, and Alicia's been through enough lately without having to worry about what ridiculous games you might be playing behind her back!" And with that, she wraps her arms firmly around Alicia's shoulders and steers her gently into the vacant relatives' room, shuts the door.

"You okay?" she asks softly. "They say anything else, you tell me, or Bea, alright? We'll deal with it."

Alicia nods gratefully. "I had no idea you had that in you…"

"Only when someone I care about needs defending. I mean it, okay? You tell them on your terms, when you're ready. Not when they are."

To her credit, it turns out that Ruby can be rather scary when she wants to be. She must have had another word with them all before she headed back to the ambulance station, Alicia isn't sure.

But she does know that the notebook on the corner of Noel's desk she's been eying furiously, suspicious, for weeks, has vanished by the time she gets back from the Paeds ED, and no one dares mention it again before it's ten minutes until her midwife appointment, and Bea comes to find her.

"Relax. You're shaking," Bea tells her quietly, reaches for her hand in the lift. "It's fine. It's all going to be fine, you'll see. This is nothing to worry about."

Alicia shudders, shakes her head, eyes watering already, pulls her NHS hoodie tightly around her, decides she doesn't care up here, that obstetrics know exactly why she's in their department anyway. "That's what you said last time…"

"I know. I know, but it's different now. You didn't have all the facts last time, did you, you hadn't had an anomaly scan. But you know now. You know she's alright…"

"She's got a massive umbilical hernia and she isn't even born yet, Bea…"

"But that's nothing that can't be easily fixed. She'll be fine, Alicia. She'll be absolutely fine, it's relatively simple surgery, the mortality rate's low nowadays. And you're doing so much better than you were three weeks ago…"

"I don't feel like I am sometimes…"

"But you are. You're doing brilliantly, this isn't going to be like last time, okay? I promise it won't be. You know what you're dealing with now."

She shakes her head. "I can barely make it through an examination, there's no way I'm going to be able to give birth to a baby naturally, let alone…" Alicia shudders, trails off.

"You don't want a caesarean?"

"I don't think I've got much choice…"

"I don't know," Bea admits. "I don't know, but you can always ask today, if it's worrying you."

"I'm not sure I want to know."

"I think they're going to want to start discussing birth plans with you this time anyway," Bea tells her apologetically. "It'll be alright. You might feel better once you know, either way. You're strong enough to get through this. I know it doesn't feel like it right now, I know, but you've coped with a lot worse."

"I'm going to have to do it all by myself, Bea…"

"What, the giving birth part? No, you're not, don't be so silly. Not unless you want to, and if you do decide that's what you want, it's totally fine. But you've got me and Ruby. We'd be your birth partner if you wanted us to, and so would your mam, once you've told her. I know we're not Ethan, and we can't change that, as much as we'd all like to. But you don't have to do this by yourself." She sighs a little as they reach the reception desk, clearly gathered from Alicia's body language that this is still something she doesn't feel comfortable doing, not just yet. "Alicia Munroe, she's got an appointment with Sorcha for twelve."

It's worth it for the scan.

Alicia has more or less come to the conclusion that she would skip the appointments and rely on her own medical knowledge, trust herself to know if there was anything disastrously wrong, if it wasn't for the scan part.

It was almost as though she was a little in shock, last time. She'd only just found out she was going to be able to keep her baby, after all, she was still in shock a little, her head was a total mess, and she was just beginning to relax and accept it, to feel happy, and then the exomphalos had shown up on the scan and it had all gone so horribly wrong.

She can finally enjoy it all, this time. The self-consciousness is still there, but it's nowhere near as awful as it was three weeks ago. She can allow herself to focus on the tiny baby on the ultrasound screen properly now, _her_ baby, not just another one of her patients, she's hers…

Maybe there's a point to it all, a reason to keep going, after all.

For her.

Maybe she can cope without Ethan, if she has her.

Everything's different, somehow. She's seen ultrasounds, before, of course, isn't exactly a stranger to them in the ED, but it's completely different seeing her own baby, floods her heart with a strange, inexplicable feeling unlike anything she's experienced before.

She needs to name her, Alicia decides. She needs to name her, come up with some ideas, at least. She can't keep calling her 'she' forever, but it's the perils of working a job involving copious contact with the public, and everything she might have picked before she finished med school just reminds her of one of her patients.

What would Ethan have liked?

They never got as far as discussing names, he was so convinced she was going to test positive for Huntington's, and then he was gone…

Ethan…

She feels strangely calm, watching the ultrasound. Calmer than she's felt for weeks, at least, since this whole nightmare began. She has her baby… she might not have Ethan, but she has her baby.

All of a sudden, it feels as though everything is going to be alright, once she's here.

Alicia is almost certain of it.

She manages to struggle her way through being examined, still won't allow her midwife anywhere near her; it has to be Bea. Sorcha tries to tell her that she's her midwife, that she needs to trust her, and Bea snaps back that she's perfectly qualified and she'll be taking care of all examinations until Alicia tells them otherwise, that she doesn't care if it isn't allowed according to the guidelines.

She won't be telling them otherwise. Alicia is already adamant about that.

She can't cope with allowing Bea anywhere near her, not really, not without it sending her right back into flashback territory.

How is she supposed to let anyone else? He was a medical professional, he was a doctor, she should have been able to trust him, how can she be sure…

How is she supposed to go through with a caesarean, for god's sake? Even with Bea there, how is she supposed to cope, she's going to be completely out of control, at the mercy of an unknown doctor who could well turn out to be just like _him_ …

Alicia can't think rationally, when it comes to any of this. She just can't force herself to do it, somehow, no matter how hard she tries.

She understands, now. She almost feels a little guilty, because all the pregnant patients she's had in the ED over the years, all the ones she's told to stop worrying, it all makes sense now.

How can they? How can they stop worrying, how can anyone?

Even Bea (and she actually trusts Bea, or trusts her about as far as she's willing to trust anyone post-Eddie, at least, anyone besides Ethan) telling her rather apologetically that she's still measuring small, feels as though she's plunging the knife in a little further.

If it was one of her patients, Alicia would be trying to reassure them that some babies just are small, that it's not necessarily something to worry about in its own right. But she can't think like that now, not when it's her own baby. All she can think about are all the things she has and hasn't done that could have damaged her already: too many nights out, tequila shots and glasses of wine in those first three months when she didn't know, all the stress cigarettes and skipped meals after she did and it all went to shit…

She just wants this part to be over. She just wants to jump ahead to when she's born, because she'll be able to look after her properly then.

Looking after her baby won't be dependent upon looking after herself, once she's born.

"So we really need to start talking about your birth plan, at this stage, Alicia," her midwife tells her gently.

She's starting to get this now, Alicia realises with considerable relief.

She finally seems to understand that this is all still so new, that Alicia's coping mechanisms up until three weeks ago- or still now, really, given she's made no progress at all in terms of announcing her pregnancy- haven't exactly allowed for getting her head around it all properly, that she's having to play catch-up, isn't quite there just yet.

"Last time… last time you mentioned… caesarean…"

 _She's going to think you're a right idiot, for god's sake, Alicia, you can't even say it without panicking…_

"That's going to be the best option, yes. The exomphalos looks minor, but it's extremely borderline. Combine that with oligohydramnios…"

Alicia closes her eyes.

"You were hoping to deliver naturally?"

"It's not… not so much…"

How can she explain it without them all thinking she's crazy?

"I… I just can't… I can't face… after…" she shakes her head. "I was… raped… about two years ago, I just… I don't want to be out of control…"

"Alright. Alright, I remember, there's things we can try to make it easier for you. But I can't recommend you for natural delivery, Alicia, you understand that, don't you? It really wouldn't be advisable…"

"Caesareans aren't the standard recommendation for exomphalos…"

"You've done your research," Sorcha concludes. "We review every case individually, yes. Exomphalos alone wouldn't necessarily mean caesarean delivery, you're right, but combined with oligohydramnios… this is really about minimising foetal distress. I'll arrange you an appointment with the obstetrician to get you booked in, you'll be able to meet them in advance…"

"The man who attacked her was a doctor down in the ED," Bea explains quietly, seems to have worked out before even Alicia can that Sorcha's offer isn't exactly going to reassure her. "I don't think that's really going to make much difference."

"I understand. I really do, but if we leave you to go into labour naturally and then we have to resort to an emergency caesarean- and I think that's incredibly likely- that's going to be far more traumatic for you than an elective. I'll make you an appointment, alright? Once we're finished here. You can talk it through with an obstetrician."

"You keep telling me she's too small and now you're telling me you want to go down the elective route…"

"Oligohydramnios could well lead to premature labour anyway. One in…"

"Yes, I know the statistics," Alicia snaps.

It feels as though everything she does is wrong, at the moment, as though every time she thinks she might be able to do this, another complication arises and just proves that she's useless, that she can't do this at all; all she had to do was keep her safe for the first nine months and she couldn't even manage that…

"Then you'll know this really is the safest option, for you and your baby. Like I said, I'll book you an appointment with an obstetrician, you can discuss it further with them."

It's perfectly clear from the look on her midwife's face that she's annoyed, has Alicia's card well and truly marked as the very worst of medic patients, constantly challenging her, outside her area of expertise and point-blank refusing to accept it, she's probably already planning her revenge in referring her to the most stubborn, unlikeable, old-fashioned, intimidating of obstetricians…

"Great." Bea reaches for Alicia's hand, squeezes gently. "Do you think you could make sure they're female? And understanding, preferably. Alicia's had an awful couple of years, one way or another, the last few months have been particularly… well, you know what the last few months have been like. I really don't think we need to make this any harder for her than it already is…"

Not for the first time, Alicia finds herself wondering how she would ever get through any of this without Bea fighting her corner.

"And is that what you want, Alicia?"

Beyond frustrated, Alicia nods.

It's probably not Sorcha's fault, not really. Perhaps in another life, were they to meet under different circumstances, perhaps if her whole pregnancy hadn't been such a disaster zone on all counts, they might even have gotten on well.

Alicia is perfectly aware that she must be an absolute nightmare to be around at the moment, she's been so standoffish and downright aggressive and awkward, how Bea and Ruby can bear to spend time around her she has absolutely no idea…

It probably isn't Sorcha's fault. Alicia does suspect that.

It just doesn't change the fact that every aspect of her admittedly limited interactions with her midwife so far has felt like a passive aggressive battle.

"Alright. Alright, I'll see what I can do. We're almost done, Alicia," Sorcha tells her, smiles sympathetically, and she's trying to win her over, Alicia knows she is, but she's just making it all worse…

"And have you been managing to eat?" Sorcha asks gently. "Alicia? I know we talked last time about…"

Alicia bursts into tears.

Bea grips Alicia's arms tightly, protectively, as they walk back along the corridor out of obstetrics, enter the lift to head back down to the ED.

"You're fine," she murmurs as the lift doors open, takes back from Alicia the hospital clipboard she's borrowed, using to conceal Alicia's notes and scan photo. "You're fine, it'll all be fine. Anyone says anything, you just tell Ruby and me and we'll shut them up, alright? We've got your back. It'll be fine. Do you think…" she begins slowly, hesitant, watches Alicia for a reaction. "Do you think maybe today's the day for…"

Alicia shakes her head. "I was thinking about it. I really, really was, but then Elle tried to force it out of me this morning and Noel keeps making stupid comments and it's doing my head in, and after that…" she shudders. "I just want to finish my shift, go home and pretend none of this is happening… Not… not like that. I've got my head around that part, now, I just… I just don't want to have to… if I could just do it naturally…"

"I know," Bea sighs. "I know. Just let me know, okay? Whenever you want to do it, just tell me, I'll gather everyone together in the pub."

"I don't deserve you, Bea…"

"Yes, you do, don't be ridiculous. This is what friends are for, you know that, right? I mean, getting hammered together, too, but real friends are the ones there in a crisis. And at least you haven't punched me this time."

"I am _so_ sorry…"

"Hey, I'm just messing with you. You're grand. You're stuck with me, okay? Me and Ruby, we're not going anywhere. It's going to get better, okay? We just need to get you through to the end and then everything will…"

Bea trails off as they turn the corner, admin station coming into view, Noel, Jade and Gem huddled together over a notepad and a cash box.

"So I want to up my bet, okay, I'll give you an extra ten on her announcing it by bringing the baby into work…"

"Nah, forget that, I reckon she'll leave it at least until the poor kid's starting school…"

Bea freezes for a moment, then starts to stride towards them, but Ruby has already beaten her to it, abandoned her patient being wheeled into cubicles despite Jan's warning look.

"Did you not listen to a word I said this morning?" Ruby rants. "If you're going to insist on being completely disrespectful and talking about her behind her back, do you think you could at least have the decency to make sure she isn't within earshot, first? You're supposed to be professionals, you should all be ashamed of yourselves!"

Mrs Beauchamp pushes open her office door, glances out into the corridor. "Dr Munroe, my office, please. Now. The rest of you, get back to work. I won't stand for gossip in my department, I believe I've already made that perfectly clear."

Alicia grabs Bea's hand, practically drags her into Mrs Beauchamp's office behind her.

"Take a seat." Mrs Beauchamp gestures to the sofa, box of tissues that seems to have become a permanent fixture in her office already carefully positioned on the coffee table. "How did it go this time?" she asks carefully, more compassion in her tone than Alicia would ever have imagined she was capable of twelve weeks ago.

Alicia shakes her head, eyes fixed firmly on the carpet.

She's tired of all this, now. She's just so tired…

"Alicia? Alicia, are you going to… no, okay," Bea sighs. "Okay. She's just been told she's going to be booked in for an elective caesarean, and she's not exactly thrilled about it."

"I just don't… after… he was a doctor, if he can do that… after those patients came forward…"

"I know. I know, I can understand that. Do you want me to speak to Obstetrics? Just to be sure they aren't…"

Alicia shakes her head. "I know she's right… I don't like it, but she has a point, as much as I don't like her…"

"Your midwife? I can arrange for you to be assigned to someone else, if you think that might help…"

"It won't. It won't, I think the problem's just me…"

"Alright. But if you change your mind, you only need to tell me. Okay? If you want me to look over your notes…"

"Exomphalos and oligohydramnios and incompetent mother, I'd do a caesarean on me, I know it's the right thing, I just don't like it…"

"Alicia. Alicia, look at me. You aren't incompetent, sweetheart. You're doing brilliantly, all things considered."

"The way my midwife looked at me when I said under no circumstances was I going near an antenatal group…"

"If it makes you feel better, I didn't with Grace, either. That's completely your choice, she's no right to make you feel pressured into it. Are you sure you don't want to be reassigned?"

"It's not going to make it any better, is it?"

"Alright. Alright, but if you change your mind, you know where I am. You only have to ask. Now, I wanted to talk to you about maternity leave," Mrs Beauchamp explains, picks up a pile of paperwork on her desk. "We really need to get this sorted by the end of the week. Have you given it any thought, since we last… no, no of course you haven't. Alright. Well…"

"This is what I mean, I _am_ incompetent, Obstetrics have probably reported me to Social Services already…"

"If they've dared do anything of the sort, they can expect a visit from me. You are _not_ incompetent, Alicia. You've just got a lot to cope with, at the moment. You're doing absolutely fine; your little girl is incredibly lucky to have you. You need to try to believe that. We'll work on the basis that you'll be booked in for an elective at thirty-six weeks at the earliest… I know you haven't got your head around it yet, I know, but we really need to get this paperwork sorted, twenty-five weeks is the deadline. So, if we put you down to start maternity leave at thirty-five weeks, that way you'll have at least a week of leave before you go in? What do you think?"

Alicia's head is spinning again, struggling to process it all. "I'm so not ready to have a baby in eleven weeks… I'm not ready to have a baby in fifteen weeks, let alone…"

"You've still got plenty of time, Alicia. You'll be fine. You can start your leave earlier, if you think that will help?"

"No, no, I want to keep working right up to the end, or I'm going to go insane… But I don't have a clue… I don't have a clue what I'm supposed to do with a baby…"

Bea laughs, squeezes her shoulder. "Umm, Neonatal still haven't stopped raving about how brilliant you were when you did placement up there last year, remember? And I've seen you in paeds. You know exactly what you're supposed to do with a baby…"

"Yes, one of my patients, someone else's baby…"

"Exactly, you'll be even more of a natural with your own. You've got nothing to worry about, Alicia. When you see her, you'll just know. You will. So stop panicking, okay? Eleven weeks is plenty of time."

"Are you going to be alright, if we go out for a couple of hours?" Bea asks casually, as the three of them climb into Ruby's car at the end of their shift. "It's Thursday, isn't it, so late-night shopping, Ruby wants to find a dress for her grandparents' anniversary party next weekend, and we… well, we figured you probably wouldn't want to be dragged around the shops…"

"… No, no, that's fine." She's a little offended that they don't want her there, but then she's not surprised, not really, not after she's been so moody and aggressive and downright awful to be around, ever since Ethan. "I was planning on going for a run, anyway, it's fine…"

"Is that really a good idea?" Ruby asks, glances worriedly at Alicia through the rear-view mirror. "At this stage, I mean…"

"Well, it's the only thing that seems to have any impact on my stress levels at the moment, so it's just going to have to be," Alicia retorts, thinks better of it the moment the words have left her mouth. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

"It's alright. I shouldn't have said it like that, I'm sorry. Just… don't overdo it, okay? But if you do, call me, and we'll come and pick you up off the pavement."

There's no danger of her overdoing it, as it turns out.

There's absolutely no danger of that.

She hasn't run since before she came down with the flu, a couple of weeks ago by now, at least, and Alicia just feels fat, heavy, weighed down, crawls around the local park at a snail's pace.

It's only to be expected, of course; completely normal, and Alicia does know that.

Everything is just a little too much at the moment.

She limps back in through the front door a short while later, double bolts, then remembers Bea and Ruby won't be home for a while yet and reluctantly takes off the safety chain, deletes her run from her running app because it's just plain embarrassing and she has no particular desire to remember anything about being pregnant, ever.

How on earth do some women go through this more than once?

Once, and that's it. Not that she really has much choice, Alicia reminds herself, not now Ethan's gone, but even so, there is absolutely no way she is ever doing this again.

She's always thought that she wanted multiple children, having secretly longed for a brother or sister herself but her daughter is just going to have deal with being an only child, because never again.

It's worth it for this baby. It's strange; just a few weeks ago, as much as she loved this baby she felt a strange sense of resentment towards her, too, because everything was just fine between her and Ethan before she told him she was pregnant, and yes, the storm was already brewing, Ethan would still have had to tell her he was starting to notice the first warning signs of Huntington's disease setting in, but somehow that didn't make much of a difference to her thought process, not back then.

Now, however, there's no resentment, and Alicia wouldn't give her daughter up for anything.

But never again.

It's worth it for her, but never again.

She showers, throws on one of Ethan's abandoned hoodies, hopelessly cold despite the first signs of spring outside and curls up on her bed, tired, over-emotional, desperately sad.

She just wants him back. That's all she wants.

Why can't she just have him back?

Before she can stop herself, she's reaching for her phone, scrolls through her contacts, presses call.

She's torturing herself. Alicia knows she is.

It's been nine weeks. Nine weeks, and she's tried this so many times now, if he was going to pick up, he would have done it already…

The call connects.

"Ethan?" Alicia asks, voice shaking with emotion. "Ethan, are you there?"

Silence.

"Ethan? Ethan, please? I'm not angry, I just miss you, I wish we could talk about this properly…"

The call ends.

She cries, for a while. She pulls her knees up to her chest as best she can at this stage, sobs, because she just wants to go back, just wants to change it all, do something, anything differently to help Ethan feel he could confide in her, because if only they had talked about this before, if only things had been different…

If things had been different, the would have been more careful, this baby wouldn't exist at all, and Alicia can't bear that thought, not now, not having become so attached.

She's so confused.

She lies there for a while, places her hands over her bump and takes in tiny kicks, flutters, completely alien and almost unwanted only a week ago, but now, Alicia can't understand for the life of her how she could have ever felt that way.

"I do love you," Alicia whispers, feels like a complete idiot and yet somehow, there's also a desperate desire within her to do it. "I know I've had a weird way of showing it, but I do love you. I really do."

There's a gentle creaking from downstairs as the key turns in the lock and the front door swings open.

"Leesh?" Bea calls. "Leesh, you in?"

"I'm upstairs!"

"Great, do you think you could stay up there for a bit? Ruby and I are just busy with something!"

"Okay!" Alicia shouts back, fights to keep the hurt out of her tone.

She should have expected this. She's been a complete nightmare to be around lately, it's not exactly any wonder that they want to spend time together without her.

She's done this to herself, but it still hurts.

There's a knock on her door a while later, soft, hesitant.

"Alicia?" Ruby asks. "Can I come in?"

"Sure." Alicia pushes herself into an upright position, well and truly beyond caring, as the door opens.

"Come with me," Ruby tells her, helps her to her feet, guides her out onto the landing, towards the stairs.

"What's…"

"You'll see in a moment. Just come with me."

Not in the mood for this, Alicia follows her obediently down the stairs, Bea waiting for them in the hallway, dining room door firmly closed.

"So… so after this afternoon… I may have lost it a bit with Noel," Ruby begins slowly.

"Like, properly lost it? I can't imagine you properly losing it with anyone, I thought today was just about as far as…"

"Oh, she did," Bea confirms. "Believe me, she did. She's scary, when she wants to be."

"Thank you," Alicia whispers. "Thank you. I know I've been a nightmare lately, you didn't have to…"

"Hey, I'm not finished yet," Ruby tells her. "Anyway, I… he started up again, him and a few of the others, when you were in cubicles. So I made him hand over the bet money."

"You what?"

"I know," says Bea. "Seriously. I know she usually hates confrontation, but once she gets going, she's terrifying. Noel was practically shaking by the time she finished with him."

"He won't be bothering you again," Ruby says firmly. "He's learnt his lesson. And, well…" she shuffles awkwardly. "You knew about the bet, didn't you, I don't think they all exactly did a great job of hiding it. But… well, it turns out it he had more departments involved than we realised."

"How many…?" She feels sick, she feels sick, how is this helping…

"The whole of the ED apart from Bea and Mrs Beauchamp, the whole of the paeds ED, the ambulance station- well, apart from me, obviously- most of the porters, admin, everyone in NICU and about half of Paediatrics," Ruby admits apologetically. "And PICU. Sorry. But the point I'm trying to make is… there was rather a lot of it. The takings from Noel's bet on you, I mean. So after he handed it over, Bea and I thought we should do something useful with it. We weren't trying to get rid of you earlier, I'm sorry if it came across like that. But the shopping part was kind of true."

She pushes open the dining room door, table taken over with baby clothes and a car seat, pile of boxes in the corner by the window.

"We've kept the receipts," Ruby explains. "So anything you want to take back, it's fine, just let me know, we can do that. We've just covered all the essentials, really. Oh, and I thought this was quite sweet." She gestures to the fluffy elephant sat on top of the baby clothes. "Bea said rabbits are boring. And I've got this for you, my Pilates instructor also does yoga, she's doing a series of classes on chakras, or something… you can put it in the bin, if you want, I just thought it might be a better option than…"

Alicia throws her arms around both of them, hugs tightly, so much she wants to tell them in that moment and so overwhelmed that her ability to communicate coherently is well and truly gone.

"Thank you," she whispers. "Thank you."

 **We finally got there with the Ruby chapter! I'm so sorry this took so long, I meant to do this one on about 23 weeks and it just kept turning into a longer and long set of scenes every time I tried to write it. I hope it was worth the wait! I love Ruby, but I find her very difficult to write.**

 **I hope you're not all too traumatised by last week's episode! I worked out Chelsea was leaving months ago so I already had most of my mourning over with, but I am still slightly heartbroken! I'm currently softening the blow watching Chelsea's Byker Grove episodes, which are very easy to find via google if you're interested- for those of you who are too young to remember it being on TV, Chelsea was in series 16-18, and she looks EXACTLY THE SAME, so I'm now imagining Chakra as mini Chelsea...**

 **Thank you as ever to Katie, guest, 20BlueRoses, lewisek18 and Katharine for taking the time to review the last chapter, your kind words honestly mean the world, and I promise I will keep writing Ethan and Alicia as long as you guys still want to read it!**

 **There is lots more Ethan coming up in the next few chapters for you all, but I have one question for you: what are your thoughts re chapters from Ethan's perspective? I'm being deliberately vague here to avoid giving the game away, I have a couple of chapters planned towards the end which will definitely be Ethan's perspective, but do you want one in the more immediate future?**

 **Reviews would be wonderful,**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	32. Chapter 32

**The Russian in this chapter is mine, the Lithuanian is off google. I apologise sincerely for any mistakes!**

 **Chapter 32**

"Why are we going to your work if I'm not an accident or an emergency?"

"Because you need to have some special tests done before we go and see the new doctor we're going to try in London next week, and there's a massive waiting list for this kind of thing at the moment, so Mrs Beauchamp's turning a blind eye," Alicia tells her, places her breakfast in front of her, hand resting on her shoulder for just a moment longer than usual.

She's still irrationally overprotective of her, even this morning. She can feel herself doing it, knows deep down that this is exactly how Ethan was with her, after Eddie, remembers only too well how annoying she found it, but still she can't stop herself.

Less than twenty-four hours ago she was hypothermic, lost in the middle of nowhere, distraught, most likely, terrified, and if Dylan hadn't found her when he did…

Alicia shudders.

How can she possibly ignore her every instinct screaming at her to hug her tightly and never let her go again, not now, not ever, when just twenty-four hours ago, she was so afraid she might never get her back?

How could anyone?

"Do I have to eat all of this?" Chakra asks, Geordie lilt coming through stronger than usual as she glances at the bowl in front of her with a look of quiet dismay.

She's her daughter. She's her daughter, and Alicia's first instinct is to hold her close and take away whatever's upsetting her, and she _can't_ , she can't because it's something as essential as food, because if she doesn't start straying closer and closer towards forcing her to eat, she's only going to get worse and worse, she's going to end up like the poor pre-teens in the anorexia inpatient unit she spent a few weeks on placement at while she was doing her Paeds training at the Great North Children's Hospital…

She can't let that happen to Chakra. She can't, she just can't.

"You have to try, okay?" Alicia tells her gently. "I really need you to eat at least half of that, can you do that for me? You're not going to start feeling completely better if you don't eat properly. Look, we'll do it together." She picks up her own spoon, holds her breath for a moment, hopes Chakra won't notice she's deliberately given her more food than usual, so that half will equate to more than she thinks. "And then we'll go to the hairdressers, and we'll make you look even more beautiful than you already do, and then we'll go to the ED."

"What kind of tests do I have to have?" Chakra asks, rearranges her breakfast intently.

"You're going to have something called a bone density scan, do you know what that is? No? It's a special x-ray, that lets us see how all your bones are developing. And then you're going to have a blood test, and I think they'll…"

"Do I have to take my clothes off?"

"For the bone density scan? No, you don't, sweetheart, you definitely don't."

Chakra nods, begins to eat happily, a completely different child from just a few moments ago. "Can I go to gym tonight?"

"We'll see, Chakka. I know you want to go, I know, but you were really, really ill yesterday. "We'll see how you are today, yeah? But I need you to eat today, Chak, if you want to go to gym later. You're still getting over the last couple of days. But I'll take you over to see your friends either way, okay? Promise. We need to do your party invitations, don't we?"

"How many people can I invite?"

"Well, I think we can probably fit about five of you lot on the floor in the living room, at a push. So if we open the dining room door out… eight? Including you. That's your whole gym level, or group, or whatever you call them, right?"

"Yes."

"Good, because I'm not having more than that over at once. And you're all going to be really well behaved, aren't you? All asleep by nine?"

"It's a sleepover, Mammy."

"Yep, I'm aware of that."

"So, midnight?"

"Nine fifteen?"

"Eleven forty-five?"

"Nine thirty, and that's my final offer. Otherwise I'm splitting you all up at eight. So you need to write your party invites, don't you, and then you can hand them out at gym. And then I need to beg Vasilisa's mam to help me get you all back here after your gym practice. Remind me why I've agreed to look after eight girls for the weekend, again?"

"Because it's my birthday!" Chakra protests, mock pouts.

"Okay, okay, I'll let you off," Alicia teases.

"That's your job, though." Chakra puts down the spoon, discards it, forgotten. "It's your job to look after children."

"Exactly! I quite like having a break from it on my days off. You don't count, obviously, because you're mine. Are you going to eat some more of that, Chakka? Yeah? Good girl."

"Do you want a break from me, sometimes? Like, Lola spends one weekend with her mam, and the next weekend with her dad, and then they switch again. And Vasilisa stays at her nana's, but not because her mam and dad are at work, because then her mam and dad can have a break."

"Nah, I go out sometimes, don't I? With Auntie Bea and Auntie Elle, and we get Auntie Ruby really drunk on one G and T and half an amaretto shot, when we can persuade her to come too. That's plenty, I just want to spend the rest of my time with you, sweetheart."

"Is amaretto the one with orange slices in it that tastes like almonds?"

"When on earth have you had amaretto?"

"At your party, when you passed your exams to be a consultant. Auntie Ruby let me try some of hers before Nana came to pick me up."

"Oh, she did, did she?"

"Yes, when she was giggling lots about things that weren't very funny, and the man at the bar wasn't looking. Before we started dancing."

"Well, that explains why you were so hyper when Nana came to get you, then. And then fell asleep within about five seconds of your head hitting the pillow, I think she said. And where the rest of Auntie Ruby's amaretto shot disappeared to. So did you like it? The amaretto. You did? Oh my god, you're so my daughter. You're _seven_."

"It tasted… kind of like almond milk, but not quite like almond milk."

"Like almond milk but not quite almond milk? Really?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'd savour the memory, if I were you, because you're not having alcohol again until you're at least… I don't know, thirteen. Thirteen's probably a good age."

"Are you supposed to be eighteen?"

"Only on its own, you can have alcohol in a restaurant when you're sixteen. Or fourteen, if you put enough makeup on and your parents lie to the waiters, like Nana and Granddad did with me. So we'll go with thirteen, okay? Optional, obviously, if you decide you want to be teetotal when you're older, that's totally fine. But only with me. You're not getting drunk at a party until you're thirty. Are you going to finish that for me?"

Chakra shakes her head, pushes the bowl away. "You gave me too much."

"Alright. You managed most of it, though, didn't you, that's really good."

How has it come to this? How has it come to the point at which she's having to praise her daughter for managing to eat?

"Please can I give Morgana and Guinevere the rest of the broccoli in the fridge?"

"You can, if you do it really, really quickly, okay? We're going to be late if we don't get going soon. And I promised Ethan we'd phone him this morning, we might have to do that in the car."

"Did you ask Ethan if he wanted to come and stay with us?"

"No, I didn't in the end," Alicia tells her, scans the kitchen, tries to remember where she dumped her handbag when they finally made it home last night.

"Did you change your mind?" Chakra asks, opens up the rabbit hutch at the end of the kitchen.

She didn't think this through when she said yes to the rabbits, Alicia ponders absentmindedly. Or maybe Robyn set her up, Robyn definitely didn't warn her they needed to be brought indoors in cold weather.

"No, no, I didn't change my mind. I was just too nervous, that's all."

"Why?"

"Well, because I'm a bit scared he might say no."

"I don't think he will," says Chakra, hugs Guinevere- or Morgana, Alicia still can't tell them apart- against her chest. "He looks much happier now than he did when we visited the first time."

She calls him through the hands-free in the car, en route to the hairdressers, because by the time she's managed to persuade Chakra to put the rabbits back, got her to brush her teeth, found her a hat and a pair of gloves because she's still shivering, still worrying her, they're dangerously close to running late.

"Leesh?" There's still considerable anxiety in Ethan's voice as he answers the phone, and instantly Alicia feels horribly guilty for not texting him first thing with an update. "I was going to call this morning, but I didn't want to get in the way, is she…?"

His voice is shaking, and it could be nothing, could just be the worry, nothing more, but there's a nagging fear in the back of Alicia's mind that it's her fault, that this is Huntington's related, that the stress of it all has sent him into a downward spiral again, that she should never have told him at all…

She's still not over it. She must have spent hours in Mrs Beauchamp's office, over those first four awful weeks in limbo after she told him she was pregnant and he had to drop the bombshell and again after she fell down the stairs and it all went to shit, hours and hours combined getting through Mrs Beauchamp's tissues, sobbing that it was all her fault, that if only she'd taken precautions after that night, if only she'd been on birth control before it even became an issue, if only she hadn't gotten pregnant…

Mrs Beauchamp must have told her a hundred times that she couldn't blame herself, that it wasn't her fault, that there was no way of knowing whether the revelation had caused Ethan's mobility and mental state to decline faster or not and therefore no point torturing herself over it, but still, eight years later, she can't shake it.

"She's fine," Alicia tells him, quickly, confidently as she can manage, desperate to put an end to the uncertainty for him before she does any more damage. "Sorry, it might be a bit noisy- we're just going out- but she's fine, aren't you, Chakra? Are you going to say hi to Ethan?"

"Hi Ethan!" Chakra calls happily, face lights up, and then she pauses for a moment, falters. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" There's confusion in Ethan's voice now, concern. "Chakra?"

"Because Mammy said you were really worried about me."

"Oh, no, no, no, Chakra, you don't have to apologise. I'm just very glad you're safe now, darling. Are you feeling better?"

"Yes, except I think it's really cold today, and Mammy keeps telling me it isn't."

"She does? I wouldn't listen to her, Chakra, your mum used to wear those jeans that don't cover your ankles, the first winter we worked together. Even when it snowed."

"Oh come on, Ethan, that wasn't proper snow, it barely even settled…"

"See? Don't listen, Chakra, she's mad. It's definitely not you, it's Mummy. But you're feeling okay, other than cold?"

"I'm fine."

"She still looks very tired, I think she's trying to convince me she's feeling better than she is so I'll let her go to gym practice later," Alicia tells him.

"I _can_ go to gym…"

"I know that's what you think, but we're going to take a view on it later, okay?"

"After we go to hospital?"

"Yes, after we go to the ED. She just needs a bone density scan and a blood test, physical exam, you know the drill, before her appointment in London," Alicia explains hurriedly to Ethan. "She's fine. There's nothing to worry about, she's going to be absolutely fine. Mrs Beauchamp's fitting her in to save us the hassle of joining the waiting list, she's fine."

"Ethan?"

"Hmm?"

"Who's your favourite Harry Potter character?" Chakra asks, changes the subject within seconds as only children can.

"Oh, have you and Mummy been reading more Harry Potter?"

"Not last night, we watched Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone instead."

"Oh, you did? Well… so my favourite character? I think I was sorted into Hufflepuff, when Mummy made me take the sorting hat seat, so does that mean I have to pick a Hufflepuff?"

"No, I think you can still pick whoever you want."

"Oh, okay. Well… in that case, I suppose I always felt I could relate rather a lot to Neville. I think I'm still secretly hoping one day I'll… oh, you won't know that yet, will you, you'll have to wait until the end. I'll tell you why I love Neville when you get to the end of the series."

"Okay. Are you going to go outside today?"

Ethan laughs. "Did Mummy tell you to ask me that?"

"No. But you don't seem to go out very much when we aren't here. And I think going outside can make you feel happier, because everything's less… well, sometimes it's sunny and that makes you feel happy, but even when it's really cold outside, it's just less… inside."

"You know what, I think you have a point. Alright. Alright, if you insist, I promise I'll go outside today. At some point."

"Do you have to work?"

"With my students, you mean? Yes, I have a couple of skype supervisions today."

"Is that like teaching?"

"Yes, it's like… like a lesson for medical students, I guess. Like being at school, but just you and the teacher."

"What do you teach them?"

"What do I teach them? Well, it's… so my pupils are all medical students, except technically they're doctors, because they already have their degrees. But they're doing another degree, and they're doing their own experiments to try to find new ways of making people better. So they're working on their own projects, and every month or so they have a lesson with me and I help them."

"So, Emergency Medicine? Because you were an Emergency Medicine doctor?"

"Yes, I suppose you could say I teach them about Emergency Medicine," Ethan agrees. "That's a very good way of putting it."

"We're going to have to go now, Ethan," Alicia interrupts them reluctantly. "We're running late already…"

"No, no, it's alright," Ethan covers hurriedly, though Alicia can still detect the disappointment in his voice. "Well, I'm glad you're alright Chakra. I'll speak to you later, okay?"

It's only as he hangs up that Alicia realises that brief conversation over the phone is by far the most natural, the most confident, she's ever heard Ethan with Chakra.

Mrs Beauchamp is waiting for them at the ED reception desk, when they arrive.

"Hi, Alicia, Chakra. Alicia, do you want to take Chakra through to my office? I'll get her into the system, I'll come and find you once we're ready for you."

"Why aren't we queuing with everyone else?" Chakra asks suspiciously, looks over at the reception desk.

"Hey, I told you, Chak, because this is off the record, alright? Mrs Beauchamp's doing us a huge favour doing this for us via the ED, she shouldn't really do this, so we have to tell her a massive thank you, okay?"

"Thank you, Mrs Beauchamp."

"Oh, you're welcome, sweetheart. You're looking much better than you were when I saw you yesterday."

"Mammy keeps saying that. But then she keeps doing things for me that I can do for myself."

She should let go of her daughter's hand at that, guilty as charged. Alicia knows she should.

She knows it, deep down, but she can't bring herself to do it, still on high alert, Chakra's small hand held tightly in hers just about the only thing capable of keeping her calm.

"Well, I'm not sure I completely blame her, you had us all very worried yesterday. So I just need you and your mum to wait in here for a minute, and I'll find someone to come down to Paeds with us. Is that alright? Good girl."

"Mammy?" Chakra snuggles into Alicia's side the moment the door is closed, eyes closed, expression pained. "Do I have to go to school, if Mrs Beauchamp decides I'm okay?"

"What? No, Chakra, do you not remember me telling you? No? Oh, I'm sorry, I should have realised you weren't very awake when you were in Resus, I should have told you again when we left here. No, no matter what Mrs Beauchamp says, no matter what anyone says, I'm never sending you back to that school, okay? I promise. I phoned up and told them that this morning." She leaves out the part about the voicemail from Rachel Gainham asking her to please phone back immediately so they can arrange a meeting to discuss it all; Chakra doesn't need to know anything about that. "So we'll keep on like we have been for a while, okay, we need to get you better before we even think about trying something else…"

"I'm _fine_."

Alicia sighs. "I know you think that, Chakka. I know, but… you're very underweight, sweetheart. And I know you think you're alright, I do, but we need to help you start eating properly again before you make yourself really ill."

"I don't want to…" Chakra begins, and then she trails off, shrugs, almost as though she's worried that perhaps she's said too much.

"I know, sweetheart. I know. Believe me, I've been there. But you're absolutely beautiful just as you are, you do not need to be any thinner. And you'll be even more beautiful once you're healthier…"

"Does that mean fat?"

"No, no it absolutely doesn't. It just means… thin doesn't mean healthy, you know that, right? We've talked about that, haven't we? It's not a case of the thinner you are, the healthier you are, being underweight can make you really ill. That's why we all keep making you eat. We're not doing it because we want to upset you, sweetheart, we really, really aren't. We just don't want you to make yourself ill, and…"

The door swings open, Mrs Beauchamp reappearing in the doorway, closely followed by Bea.

"Auntie Bea!" Chakra exclaims happily, jumps up from the sofa beside Alicia, runs towards her.

"Hey, we're undercover today Chak, alright?" Bea tells her, catches her, spins her around in the least undercover way possible. "We're not really supposed to be doing this in the ED, and I probably shouldn't be treating you either…"

"Why not?"

"Well… so you know Mammy isn't allowed to treat you, right? It's the same rule, it's not just parents. We have to pretend… well, not that we don't know each other, we just have to tone it down a bit, okay? Mrs Beauchamp wants me to spend some more time in Paeds for my portfolio, so we figured you'd be pretty cooperative as my first patient."

"Yes, Dr Kinsella."

"Oh, you're good at this. I _love_ the hair, by the way."

"Thank you. Mammy wanted me to cut it like hers and I just wanted to make it all the same length, so we compromised."

"Yep, we compromised. We went for about half a centimetre shorter than she initially wanted," Alicia teases, rolls her eyes in mock exasperation.

"Come on, then, I'll take you down to Paeds, Chak, come with me. I'm totally out of my depth in there, so you're going to have to help me, okay? Is that a Merida doll? From Brave?"

"Merida's the best Disney princess."

"She totally is. The only one that looked anything like us when I was your age was Ariel."

"Ariel doesn't count though, because she's a mythical creature," Chakra points out, as they pass along the corridor into the Paeds ED.

"I know, right? I'm glad it's not just me who thinks so. Ginger discrimination, that's what Disney was until, I don't know, fifteen years or so ago. Whenever Brave came out. So who's better, then, Merida or Anna from Frozen?"

"Merida, because she's a Highland princess, and she can do all the archery stuff that everyone thinks only boys can do. And the medieval times were really cool, because everyone believed in magic and fairy tales. And I've never been to the Highlands, but I think they must be like Northumberland, only prettier. And colder."

"That's a pretty good answer. Okay, so you're going to come and sit just here for me…"

"I hope you don't mind," Mrs Beauchamp murmurs to Alicia, as they follow behind, clipboard in her hands. "She needs a few more Paeds cases for her portfolio, and children aren't really her forte- most children, anyway. I thought this would be good for her…"

"Oh, believe me, Chakra will be about ten times more cooperative for Bea than she will anyone else," Alicia assures her. "You've just made her day."

"Have you…" Mrs Beauchamp begins carefully, glances across at Chakra and Bea. "Have you talked to Ethan yet?"

"About everything that's been going on with her? Oh yes, we've had that conversation," Alicia sighs. "I just don't know what to do for the best, anymore. If I don't tell him, that feels completely wrong, I want him to be involved in her life, after all, I can't pick and choose, but then if I do tell him I worry I'm just going to send him into a downhill spiral, and for what… Sorry. Sorry, I know you need to be assessing…"

"It's alright. We'll talk later, okay? I'll be in my office later, come and find me, we can talk then. So where are you going to start, Dr Kinsella?"

"Well, she's good for primary survey, obviously, I've sent Louise down to book her in with radiology, so I'm going to go straight in for secondary. I'm going to take your blood pressure, Chakra, so if you just give me your arm? And then if you stay nice and still for me… good girl." Bea glances up at Alicia, a little apologetically. "Her blood pressure's a little low…"

Alicia closes her eyes.

"What does that mean?"

"Oh, it's nothing to worry about, Chakra. Have you been feeling a bit light-headed? You have? That's probably because your blood pressure's still a bit low. That's why we really need you to try to keep eating and drinking, okay? That will make you feel better. Have you had breakfast? Yeah? Okay. So I'm going to clip this onto your finger now, do you know what this is?"

"Does it tell you my heartrate?"

"That's exactly right. You're pretty good at this, aren't you? I reckon you'd make a great doctor one day. So can you see that big number there, the ninety nine? That's telling us that there's plenty of oxygen in your blood, that means you're doing really, really well. We're going to take you down for an x-ray in a bit, okay, did Mammy explain about that?"

"She said I have to have a special x-ray so you can see all my bones."

"Wow, you are _definitely_ going to have me out of a job soon. It's called a bone density scan, did you know that? We just need to be sure all your bones are developing properly. So, while we're waiting, we're going to do some blood tests, okay? You alright with needles? Or do I need to resort to Mammy's tried and tested distraction techniques?"

"How does the needle draw the blood out?" Chakra asks curiously. "Because, usually if you cut yourself with a needle, it bleeds everywhere, but it doesn't go through the needle and out the top like when you have a blood test."

"Oh, you're going to be fine with the needle, aren't you? Just as well, really, I'm nowhere near as good with a rubber glove puppet as Mammy is. The needle has a tiny, slanted opening at the end, and that goes all the way through into the tubing. So once we have the needle in your vein, that creates a special vacuum, that's like, really, really strong pressure, and it sucks the blood into the tube."

"When did doctors start using needles to get blood from their patients? Medieval doctors used to use leeches and… and… lots of other nasty insects to make their patients bleed, because they thought they were ill because they had too much blood. When did doctors realise that wasn't real medicine?"

"Do you know what? That's a really, really good question," Bea covers. "Such a good question that I think we're going to have to revisit that one later, okay? I'll tell you all about it later. So this is Jurgita, Chakra, do you remember her from yesterday? Jurgita's going to take a blood sample from you, that alright? Good girl."

"You must stay very still for me, Chakra," Jurgita explains, places down the bloods tray. "I put this around your arm, to help me find vein. You are not afraid of needle?"

"No. Do you work with my mam?"

"Of course, she is my favourite consultant," Jurgita tells her, though Alicia is in no doubt she'd tell every paeds consultant's child the same. "You look away now, yes?"

"Can't I watch?"

"If you want to. It might make you feel funny…"

"It won't. Where are you from?" Chakra asks, watches the needle intently.

"Chakra…" Alicia warns.

"No, no, it's alright. I am from Lithuania. Do you know where Lithuania is? You don't? Lithuania is in Eastern Europe, next to Russia."

"Is it near Belarus? My gym coach is from Belarus."

"Ah, and you know where is Belarus? Lithuania is above Belarus."

"Do you speak Russian?"

"Yes, I speak Russian. But Russian is not my language, in Lithuania we speak Lithuanian. I speak Russian because when Lithuania was in Russian country called Soviet Union, with Belarus, we have to learn Russian."

"Moya uchitelnitsa ritmiki govorit… s nami po-russki," says Chakra happily. "Potomu-shto… potomu-shto…"

"Potomu-shto ona ne govorit po-angliski?"

"Ne! Ne, potomu-shto… important?"

"Ah, ona govorit eto vazhni?"

"Da."

"Ya ponemayu. So, we are finished now. I take your blood to lab, and they send back when they are ready."

"How do you say thank you in Lithu… Lithuanian?"

"Ačiū."

"Ačiū, Jurgita!"

"I think, this first time that child thank me for taking blood," says Jurgita, expression thoroughly perplexed as she meets Alicia's eyes. "Dr Munroe, I take blood sample to Phlebotomy."

"Dr Kinsella," Alicia corrects quickly. "I'm off-duty, she's Dr Kinsella's patient."

As nice as it is to know she's managed to inspire some vague sense of loyalty amongst the paeds nurses, she also knows Bea would have flown through this stage of her training weeks ago were it not for her lack of confidence with Paeds.

"Her bone density's completely normal," Bea assures Alicia, reappears in Paeds. "Slightly towards the lower end of average, but still well within the normal range. Look." She holds out the x-rays, knows Alicia well enough to realise that she isn't going to believe it until she can see it herself. "She's absolutely fine, developmentally. No signs of osteoporosis."

"Helen told Mammy she thought I'd have… low bone… density, because she doesn't think children should be vegans."

"I know she did. Well, I still think you're missing all the fun, but all the same, if it was up to me I'd take your perfectly healthy x-rays and tell Helen to shove them up her…" She trails off, as though suddenly reminded of Mrs Beauchamp's presence. "Can we maybe forget I said that? Her blood results are a bit more… well, we knew what her bloods were going to be like, didn't we? Her electrolytes are lower than I'd like, vitamin D's okay but she's anaemic…"

Chakra watches them intently, and it's breaking Alicia's heart.

"So I can definitely, definitely go to gym?" Chakra asks later, collects up her party invitations as though she almost can't quite dare believe it.

"Yep, you can definitely go to gym, sweetheart. As long as you promise me you're going to eat your dinner for Auntie Ruby later. That's the deal, okay?"

"Do you have to work tonight?"

"What? No, I don't, I don't have to work until Saturday night, now. Auntie Ruby's just going to bring you home tonight, okay, I'll be back after you've gone to bed."

"Are you going out with Auntie Bea and Auntie Elle?"

"No, no I'm not. I… well, you have to promise not to laugh, okay?"

She's going to find out eventually, Alicia figures, not for the first time today wonders why on earth she's doing this to herself.

"Why?"

"Oh, because… because when you were missing, on Tuesday, Miss Yekaterina did something really kind for me, and I promised myself if I got you back safely, I'd… I'd do something she asked me about on Monday, when I dropped you at gym. Kind of like a making a deal with the universe thing. So I'm going to have to go through with it now. Actually, Chakra…" She hesitates, self-conscious, tells herself it's too late to back out now. "Before we go, do you think you could talk me through first position?"

Chakra frowns at her for a moment, tilts her head, and then she seems to understand. "Just first position? Or I can show you pliés and tendus, and relevés, and then you'll probably be okay for barre."

"That sounds perfect. But if you dare laugh at me, even once…"

Has she made the right decision? Alicia worries, as she parks, holds Chakra's hand, other around her shoulder, walks her out of the car park, towards Miss Yekaterina's domain. It was only yesterday that she was in resus on humidified oxygen… and she's so much better, Alicia does know that, but it's only twenty-four hours since she was discharged and nowhere near long enough to fully recover from the trauma of the twenty-four hours that came before that, let alone given everything else… But then at the same time she knows how desperate Chakra is to do this, and she can't blame her, not really, not when it's so obvious she feels happy and included and accepted here in a way she just doesn't at school...

"Mammy?"

"Hmm?"

"I can carry my own gym bag."

"Yep, you can, can't you?" Alicia agrees, flustered, hands it over. "We didn't bring your…"

"I don't need my hoop, because we're doing ballet, and then we're doing conditioning, and then we're doing rope."

"Oh, okay." When did she get so grown up that she can organise herself? Alicia wonders. "So you promise you're going to take it easy, and if you start to feel funny, you're going to sit and watch for a while?"

"I promise. Can I go in, now?" Chakra asks, halts outside the changing rooms.

"Yep, you can go in a minute. I'm going to stay and watch for a bit, okay? So if you decide you don't feel well enough, I'll still be here, we can go home."

"I'm okay."

She's not okay, not really. Alicia's almost certain of that.

She's just trying really, really hard to pretend to be.

"Alright. So Auntie Ruby's going to come and get you later and take you home, I'll see you tomorrow morning."

"Our house or her house?"

"Our house. I won't be late back, Chak, I promise, it's just going to be a bit after your bedtime. And you give your party invites out after practice, okay? Not before, Miss Yekaterina really won't thank you for doing it before. I love you, darling…"

"You're seeing me tomorrow," says Chakra, clearly a little bewildered by the fuss her mother is making, skips off into the changing rooms before Alicia can pull her into a hug, seek the reassurance she didn't realise she was so desperate for until she's gone, too late.

She's being stupidly overprotective. Alicia knows she is.

That just doesn't make it any easier.

"Dr Munroe? I talk to you in my office, please."

Momentarily startled, Alicia turns around, finds Miss Yekaterina stood in the doorway behind her.

She needs to get a grip, Alicia tells herself. She needs to get a grip, her head's still all over the place…

"Oh… of course, that's fine," she stammers, caught off-guard, feels like a small child again; why does Miss Yekaterina always manage to make her feel like a badly-behaved child? "Did… Bea called you yesterday, right?"

"She called me, yes. I was very relieved, when she told me. You brought Chakra today?"

"Yes, she's gone through to put her bag away… I'm not sure she's really got enough energy to be here, to be honest, but she insisted… I'm going to hang around for a while just in case…"

"There is no problem," Miss Yekaterina tells her, holds open her office door. "I will watch her today, she will not do anything she cannot do."

"Thank you."

"It's alright. And how are you?"

"Oh, I'm fine. I'm fine, Chakra's the one who…"

"Yes," Miss Yekaterina agrees. "But you have had traumatic week also."

She so underestimated her, Alicia realises now.

She underestimated her massively.

"Oh, you know. I'll live," Alicia covers at last. "I'll be fine. Sorry, you wanted to speak to me…"

"Yes. Yes, I did. You remember competition Chakra did in Birmingham, yes? In January?" She rummages through the stack of paper on her desk, holds out an envelope. "This is from British Rhythmic Association, they have representative at Birmingham competition, they invite Chakra to training camp in July."

"Oh, really? That's… I didn't realise she was that g…"

Alicia stops, ashamed, suddenly realises that perhaps she's part of her daughter's problem.

"Yes, it is very great honour, she did very well. So with your permission, I take her with Vasilisa, Anya and Phoebe to training camp in July?"

"July? Well, if… if Chakra wants to go, I think I'll probably be over never wanting to let her out my sight again by then."

"I have not told her yet, I wait to tell you first. You see." Miss Yekaterina pauses, rather apologetic all of a sudden. "I cannot take her if she will not eat. British Rhythmic take eating disorders very seriously, it is like for ballerinas, sometimes coaches will push girls to look certain way, and they may think I tell her she must…"

"No, no, it's alright," Alicia cuts her off hurriedly, doesn't want to hear the rest. "It's alright, I understand, I really do. I know you haven't told her anything of the sort, for the record. I know it isn't that, she loves coming here. Look… how soon do you need an answer? I… I want to say she'll be over the worst of this by July, but I just don't know…"

"Then I tell them yes, we do not tell Chakra for now, and maybe it is possible we must tell them in July she have injury. They will not ask too many questions."

Alicia doesn't think she'll ever be able to thank her enough.

She stays, that first half hour, sits upstairs and watches, just in case, tries to work out how her daughter, who quite clearly can't cope with the mere thought of school, seems to struggle so massively with the other children in her class and social interaction, can apparently be so at ease amongst another set of children in this environment.

It has to be something at school. It has to be. There's no other explanation, nothing else makes any sense…

She drags herself off to the gym after that- and that's a bad sign in itself, all things considered, because usually sitting and watching any more than ten minutes of Chakra's practices is enough to bore her to death (she doesn't mind the actual gymnastics, she isn't a terrible mother, but the practice sessions are boring as hell). She takes out her frustration on the weights machine, showers, drives back over, begins to psych herself up for this, decides she's still got plenty of time and then before she can help herself she's picking up her phone again.

She's being ridiculous. She knows she is.

She just wants to hear his voice.

"Hey," Ethan greets her, answers on the third ring. "I was thinking about you earlier, how's everything there?"

"It's… well, it's better than I feared, I suppose." Her voice is shaking with emotion, and Alicia doesn't quite know why, not at first. "Chakra's bone density scan came back normal, thank god, she's still malnourished, obviously, her electrolytes aren't great, but nothing that can't be fixed. Not yet, anyway. She's eating reasonably normally today, I don't think she's feeling half as fine as she wants me to believe she is, she still looks like she hasn't slept for days, but she's doing okay."

"And she's… she's over the trauma of the whole thing?"

"She's fine. She seems completely fine, she went off into gym totally unbothered and I'm the one who can't cope with being separated from her…"

"Oh, Alicia…"

"I need to get a grip, if she's over it then that's the most important thing, isn't it, she's already looking at me like she doesn't get why I keep babying her, _I_ don't get why I keep babying her…"

"Because two days ago you didn't know if you were even going to see her again," Ethan says simply. "I know, I know. I'm sorry. But it's perfectly understandable, that's all I mean. It'll get better, darling. It will. It's still all so raw, but once you're over the shock of it…"

"But things like this happen, Ethan, and I start wondering whether I actually have a clue what I'm doing with her…"

"Hey, don't be so silly. You know exactly what you're doing with her, Alicia, you're an amazing mum. None of this is your fault."

"She's anorexic, Ethan, or she's got some kind of issue with food, at least, and she's only seven…"

"And you didn't cause that," Ethan tells her firmly. "You can't blame yourself. You're doing everything you can for her, you're trying to get her help, anyone can see you're fantastic with her. You aren't the problem, Alicia. Believe me, you aren't."

"Ethan…" Alicia hesitates for a moment, uncertain, suspects she knows the answer already but somehow, she needs to hear it, torture herself with it. "Do… I don't suppose you know…" Too-late, she realises her fatal error, curses herself. "Sorry. Sorry, forget I said anything…"

"No, no, it's alright. Alicia? What is it?"

"You probably don't know… you don't have a family history, do you? Of… of eating disorders, I mean. Just something the child psych said, when we saw her on Monday, she's bought into the genetic predisposition argument."

"Oh. Oh I see. Well, Cal looked into our birth family more than I did, I never really showed as much interest as perhaps I should have. But no. Not that I know of, anyway. I take it there's nothing on your side either, then? I wouldn't listen to her, it sounds like she's been worse than useless, from what you've said. From what I understand, there's no solid evidence of any genetic link, anyway."

"I… listen, I've got to go, I'm meant to be back at Chakra's gym in a couple of minutes," Alicia tells him quickly, fights to keep her voice level. "I'll text you later, yeah?"

She runs through the rain back across the car park and in through the front entrance, up the stairs, lurks awkwardly, shyly, at the back of a huddle of women far taller and thinner and more graceful than she will ever be, slips through silently behind them when the doors open.

"Dr Munroe, I finally persuade you to join us," Miss Yekaterina greets her, shatters all her hopes of keeping a low profile. "So, you come here." She takes Alicia's hand as though she's Chakra's age, leads her over to the ballet barre. "You can copy on each side, but first I show you warm up."

 **It makes me very sad that I have to say this, so I'll keep it as brief as possible- and if you don't know why I'm saying this, then this is NOT directed at you.** **One thing I've really tried to do in writing this story is to keep things as authentic as possible. According to the most recent government statistics I can find, approximately 6% of the NHS workforce are EU nationals. It's always annoyed me that Casualty have never tried to reflect this more on screen. You may have noticed that I have two Eastern European NHS staff across my stories that are my 'own' characters, Alicia's new boss in Manchester in My Heart Was Home Again and Jurgita in this story.**

 **I really don't want to get into my own nationality on here, but my 'other' country is in Eastern Europe, as you may have worked out if you've read Prostor, Prostor. Doctors there recently turned down a pay rise and asked the government to give it to the nurses instead, because salary for nurses is so horrifically low. Many nurses are leaving for other EU countries like the UK in search of better working conditions and have been for some time. Sadly, this is the case in many other former communist countries, too. Eastern European workers are a hugely valuable part of the NHS, and I've deliberately rewritten this chapter to include Jurgita again to try to demonstrate this, after a comment made last week. I also really, really hope Alicia doesn't come across as the perfect parent here, I've tried to ensure she doesn't throughout this story, but particularly so in this chapter.**

 **Thank you so much to guest, Lewisek18, Katie, PanicPeacePit, Guest and 20BlueRoses for your reviews, you are all WONDERFUL. I always worry the past chapters aren't my strong point, so your feedback means the world. (Terrible confession, _I_ got Chakra's name from a yoga workshop too...) **

**As ever, reviews would be fantastic. I think I'm finally doing Alicia announcing her pregnancy either next chapter or the chapter after, but please feel free to let me know if you would prefer otherwise! I also have a new oneshot thing called Still I Love Him, and I would love to hear your thoughts on that too if you read it :)**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33**

 **26 weeks**

"I didn't hear you come in last night," Bea tries carefully, watches Alicia protectively from across the locker room, glances back towards the door every few moments, standing guard, just in case. "I haven't seen you all day…"

"Well, night shift tonight, I was sleeping." Alicia slams her locker shut, storms off into the nearest cubicle. "I don't have to answer to you, Bea."

"I know you don't," Bea sighs. "I know. But you… did you go home with him, last night? The guy from the…"

"Oh my god, I am not having this conversation."

Bea sighs, closes her eyes. "Alright. Alright, fine, you don't have to tell me. I know, it's none of my business. I just… I know you didn't just have the one glass last night- I'm not judging," she covers quickly. "That isn't what this is about, I'm not judging at all. I was just worried, when I saw you leave with him…"

She'd even run after her. Not at first; at first, she'd hesitated, had been watching from across the pub wondering whether or not she should intervene for a while, decided that was only going to go down terribly, that she couldn't be sure of how much she was drinking, not from the other side of the room, and she was just going to have to trust her to handle herself. She'd tried to focus on the conversation over on her own table, tried to leave her to it, had let Alicia make it out the door with him before something protective within her had snapped and she'd run out after them, but by the time she made it out onto the street they were climbing into a taxi, all too late.

"I can look after myself, Bea, just because of what happened with Eddie…"

"I know that. But… I mean… does he even know…"

"It's pretty bloody hard to miss!" Alicia retorts angrily. "Of course he did. I can't exactly avoid it now, can I? Just because I haven't told everyone here yet, I know they all already know, why I'm even bothering I really don't…"

That tells her all she needs to know, really, Bea considers. That just says it all, confirms all of her suspicions; the waste of space knew she was pregnant and he still kept ordering her drinks…

"And so you told him…?"

"I told him the truth! I told him the father ran out on me when I found out, it's not like that part of it's a secret, is it?"

"And he still thought it was appropriate to get you drunk and take you home, did he?"

"I thought you said you weren't judging me!"

"I'm not judging you," Bea tells her, gently as she can manage. "I'm just…"

"If that sentence is going to end with I'm being a selfish cow and it's not just about me anymore, you can forget it."

She's so vulnerable. She's so vulnerable, but she doesn't seem to see it; sometimes Bea wonders if she's ignoring it deliberately, still on self-destruct.

Is that what last night was really about? Is this all just some awful self-destruction thing, has she just reached a point at which she doesn't care what happens to her anymore, dignity well and truly gone?

"It wasn't going to, actually. I'm judging him, not you."

"Isn't that just the same thing?"

"No, no I don't think it is. You can make your own decisions, but him, he'd only just met you, you're telling me you actually discussed your… situation, and still he was plying you with alcohol and thought it appropriate to take you home?"

"I knew what I was doing!"

"You're spectacularly missing the point!" Bea argues. "Ethan left ten weeks ago…"

"Yep, and I think he's made it pretty clear he's not coming back, so all things considered, I think I'm allowed to have some fun with someone else if I want to! No one's going to look at me twice once I'm a single mother, are they…"

Bea decides this isn't the moment to protest that in her role as protective best friend, she wouldn't trust any man willing to pick up Alicia, mildly tipsy, pregnant and clearly vulnerable, as far as she could throw them.

"Hey, that isn't true, and you know it. Robyn's got a new partner now, hasn't she? It happens all the time nowadays, you are so not going to spend the rest of your life alone, okay? And if it's more about the sex, more of a short-term thing, then fine, you do you." _And what I actually mean is I'll buy you_ _a bloody vibrator if I must and we can both be embarrassed, I don't care, I'm never letting you get picked up by some sleazy guy in the pub at closing time again, but telling you that right now is going to end really, really badly,_ she mutters under her breath, confident that Alicia is safely out of earshot in the cubicles. "But he looked dodgy. You can do a hell of a lot better than him, Alicia. I just… I don't want to make this about _him_ , I really don't, but I just… I don't want to see you get hurt again."

"Once, Bea!" Alicia snaps, door still firmly locked. "I have had sex _once_ since Eddie, once, and as ridiculous as it sounds given… given _this_ , I freaked out so much it hardly counts, and I just want to be normal, everyone else can manage it without panicking, I just want to be _norma_ l, is that really too much to ask?"

She's hormonal, Bea concludes. She's hormonal and she's upset and she's struggling and sleep deprived at the start of a night shift and it's a terrible combination, she's going to be so embarrassed given a couple of hours…

"Of course it isn't," Bea sighs. "Just… please tell me you used protection…"

"It's a bit late for that, don't you think?"

"You know as well as I do that isn't what I meant..."

"What are you, my mam, or something? If you must know… look, I slept on the sofa, okay!" Alicia admits tearfully, finally slides the lock open, emerges back out into the changing area, dumps her clothes in her locker. "I panicked, I couldn't do it… it was just… it was like I was back there, it was like he was _him_ , I wanted to go, I would have walked home if he didn't insist… look, he was actually really sweet about it, okay? He didn't force himself on me or anything, he just wouldn't let me walk home by myself, I slept on his sofa…"

"You're twenty-six weeks pregnant, Alicia, if he was really that chivalrous _he_ would have taken the sofa…"

"That isn't the point! I… I just can't…" Alicia shakes her head, distraught. "It's been almost two years and I still can't… I could barely do it with Ethan, and he's not coming back, is he… how am I ever… I just wanted to prove to myself I could do it… and I can't… I can't…" And with that, she loses it completely, breaks down and sobs, head in her hands, such a drastic transition that even for Bea, rather used to this by now, it's a little alarming.

"Oh, okay. Come here, lovely, it's okay. It's okay." She pulls Alicia into a hug, holds her tightly, rubs her back, thoroughly convinced after this last week she's far more uncomfortable than she's letting on. "It's all okay. I've got you. He didn't hurt you? He didn't do anything you weren't comfortable with?"

Alicia shakes her head, closes her eyes.

"Alright. You just feeling a bit all over the place, then? That's allowed. I reckon we've still got a few minutes before Mrs Beauchamp comes looking for us. You need to cry, you cry, okay? Sometimes it's better to let it all out."

"Do you think three glasses of wine and too many tequila shots is enough to do her permanent damage?" Alicia asks tearfully.

"She moving like she normally would?"

"She won't stop attacking my bladder, if that's what you mean."

"Then she's fine, Leesh. She's fine, she'll be absolutely fine."

"I'm sure there's some link between exomphalos and alcohol consumption in pregnancy…"

There's panic building in her voice now, Bea notes grimly. It's as though she's finally calmed down enough to think clearly, reality hitting and it's all too much…

It's still so early. It's easy to forget, given everything else that's happened, that it was only ten weeks ago that Ethan left, that only four weeks before that she hadn't known about his Huntington's at all.

"Hey, I don't think that's proven. Come and sit down, lovely, sit down for me here. I've got you. I've got you, there you go. It's alright. Either way, one night really isn't going to hurt her. If you start making a habit of it, that's a different story, but one time really isn't the end of the world, okay? She'll be absolutely fine. I'm much more worried about you."

"I'm okay…"

"You're not though, are you? You look shattered. Have you managed to eat anything?"

"Kind of."

"Okay. Okay, so we'll get you some food before you start your shift, then. Twelve hours," Bea reminds her gently. "Twelve hours, and then we'll get you home and you can sleep, you'll feel better…"

"I can't, I've got that counselling session right after we finish." Alicia moans, frustrated, wipes at her eyes, presses her hand against the top of her bump, smooths down her scrub top, expression thoroughly unimpressed. "I'm the size of an actual whale…"

"No, you're not, don't be so silly. You're not even close. Are you sure you aren't in pain? Leesh? Twelve hour shifts are bad enough at the best of times, let alone…"

Alicia shakes her head, arms wrap around her bump. "I don't want any special treatment, I just want to get on with it."

"And you do realise plenty of women start reducing their night shifts around this time, right? At least ask Mrs Beauchamp about it, if you think it might help. Or even if you were just scheduled extra breaks…"

"Honestly, I'm fine, I've… I've come into work in more pain than this, I'll be fine." Alicia pulls away, reaches for her trainers, rotates her ankles and winces. "Never, ever get pregnant. It's shit. Okay, so it's not all shit, but most of it is." She pushes her feet into her trainers awkwardly. "I'll be fine."

"If you had more regular breaks, it might help…"

"It's the NHS, Bea. We hardly get the breaks we're supposed to as it is, can you imagine how unpopular I'd be if I was disappearing into the staffroom every couple of hours?"

Bea is pinning all her hopes on Alicia's looming counselling session and Ruby's efforts to drag her out to yoga with her in the name of relaxation, at this stage.

It's as though she's become so used to trying to conceal it all, just get on with it, manage somehow, that she can't get her head around doing it any other way now, doesn't want to announce it, doesn't want to accept any help, minor adjustments to make her life a little easier for the next few months, and even Bea's brief placement in Obstetrics is enough for her to know that Alicia's current coping mechanisms aren't going to be doing her any favours come late pregnancy.

"You need to tell them," Bea tries carefully. "Once you've told them…"

Alicia laughs bitterly. "They all already know, Bea, I'm not stupid…"

"I know. But once you've told them, it'll be better. It really will. You won't feel so stressed all the time coming into work, for a start. And everyone will understand, lovely. They will. Emergency Medicine's physically demanding enough at the best of times. It's worth starting to think about it, okay? Do you think?"

"I just… there's so much going on in my head… I can't even make sense of it, how am I supposed to explain it to a counsellor…"

"Well, I think that's their job, helping you explain it. It helped last time, didn't it? You didn't think it would, and it did, right? So maybe this time it'll help, too, you just need to give it a try."

"I keep thinking about… just… stupid things…"

"Like?" Bea presses gently. She glances back over to the door; they've been lucky so far, she reasons, lucky that they both arrived late enough that the changing room has been empty all this time, but that's going to change sooner or later…

"Like… like what if he just doesn't want me, what if he finally decides to get in touch once she's born and he wants to share custody…"

"Hey, listen to me. That's not why he left, lovely. That's so not why he left, anyone can see that."

"That isn't what Marty was telling Gem last week in…"

"And what do they know about it? Nothing, do they? Not really. They don't have all the facts. And if you don't want to tell them…"

"I _can't_ tell them, Bea, it's not fair on Ethan, he didn't want anyone to know…"

"Well, you already know I think you're showing him more respect than he deserves. But if you're sure you don't want to tell them, then you just have to ignore it, okay? They know nothing. He did _not_ leave because he didn't want you, Alicia. Ruby and I knew what was really going on that week, the rest of them didn't. There's no way he left because of you. But regardless, that's the last thing you need to be worrying about, no one's going to take a newborn away from her mam, not like that. She doesn't need anyone else like she needs you, you're her mammy."

"But he's her dad, she needs him too…"

"No, she doesn't," Bea tells her firmly. "Not if he's going to be like this, she doesn't. She's got you. She already has an amazing mammy, she doesn't need anyone else."

"He didn't even say goodbye, Bea, he didn't even hint at it, there was nothing…"

"Hey, it's okay. It's okay. I think…" Bea hesitates, aware she's potentially on dangerous ground. "You looked… it looked an awful lot worse than it really was, when we got you into resus. From where he was, from the top of the stairs, it may well have looked as though paralysis was a genuine possibility… I know that doesn't make it right. What he did is completely inexcusable, I know that…"

"He isn't thinking straight," Alicia whispers faintly. "He isn't coping, I think he'd just been trying to bury it all, since he found out, but then he couldn't ignore it and… we could have made it work, we really could have, we still could if he'd just…"

"I know. I know, but we need to focus on you for now, alright? He's going to have to take care of himself if he doesn't want to let you help him, Leesh. We've all tried, haven't we? Us and Ruby and Mrs Beauchamp, there really isn't anything else we can do at the moment. You need to focus on looking after you and Meabh for now- hey, don't look at me like that," she teases softly. "Come up with something better and I'll stop calling her Meabh."

"I'm trying!" Alicia protests, plays along. "Every time I think I like something, a precocious child comes into Paeds with the same name and puts me off it completely."

"I did try to tell you specialising in Paeds was a mistake."

"She's got a middle name, that's better than nothing, right? Callie," Alicia tells her quietly, closes her eyes for a moment. "Ethan's brother was Cal."

"Callie's pretty," Bea agrees. "So… Meabh Callie Munroe?"

"Doesn't work."

"Okay. Okay, so what do you like?"

"I like Indigo, but I'm not inflicting Indigo Munroe on an innocent baby. And I liked Sienna until I had about a hundred of them in Paeds last week, and half of them were actual monsters."

"Fair enough. So… Ava? Violet? Okay, okay fine, we're definitely not on the same wavelength here, I'll get you a book instead. Come on." She reaches for Alicia's hand, pulls her to her feet, towards the door. "We should probably go and find some patients."

"Dr Munroe, Dr Kinsella, I need you in Resus, please," Dylan corners them as they head down the corridor. "We've got a particularly nasty burns case- petrol explosion just outside Holby, multiple casualties. Burns and Plastics are already full, we're about to resort to an escharotomy down here but it's going to be complicated. You've done an escharotomy with me before, haven't you, Alicia?"

Alicia nods. "It was about a year and a half ago…" Her hands press against the small of her back for a moment, and then she seems to think better of it, retracts her hands abruptly as she realises Dylan is watching her.

"Alright. Alright, so you know what you're doing. Bea?"

"I know the theory…"

"I'll talk you through it. Adult female, approximately thirty years of age, the low right leg's so badly damaged I think it's best we just go straight in for amputation at this point, reduce the risk of infection."

"You don't have an ID?" Bea asks, smiles gratefully as the nearest theatre nurse assists her with her gown.

"Not yet. She was alone, no ID found at the scene, the police are trying to access her phone. So if you start on this side, watch Alicia. So you take the scalpel, we'll go for longitudinal to start with. This is damage control, really, until Burns and Plastics are free."

She's half watching Alicia perform the procedure, mentally taking notes, half watching Alicia's expression, doesn't miss the way she hunches over awkwardly, expression rather pained.

"Alright. Alright, so Bea, everything's clear? Leave Alicia to work on the left, you take over on the right, please. Can we chase Burns and Plastics again? Robyn, you keep an eye on her stats, and if someone can find Dr Munroe a chair."

He almost gets away with it. He slips it in so casually that Alicia doesn't even blink, not at first, and for a moment, even Bea is half-convinced Alicia is going to go along with it.

Then it seems to click.

"I don't need a chair…"

"And I don't need you collapsing in the middle of this, Alicia, we're already under enough pressure."

"I am not going to collapse," Alicia snaps, eyes never leaving her scalpel, though her expression tells a different story.

"If someone could please find Alicia a chair whether she intends to use it or not, so I can at least tell Connie I tried to prevent an avoidable staff incident in the middle of a complex procedure," Dylan sighs, brushes back past Bea, voice lowered so that Alicia can't hear. "If you could please just somehow get her to address basic biology before she becomes a liability, I think we would all be most grateful."

 **Thank you as ever to 20blueroses, Katie and guest for reviewing the last chapter, you were especially lovely this time, and I'm so glad you've picked up on Alicia's dilemma. I am very conscious that it's easy to make your characters come across perfect when you really like them as people, so I'm very glad to know you don't think that's the case! (And a LOT of time has gone into Alicia and Chakra's relationship, so thank you, you guys are seriously wonderful).**

 **I hope you don't mind this chapter, it wasn't planned as such, but I had a sudden urge to try something different over the weekend, and I loved Bea and Alicia's relationship at the end of series 32. I also really wanted to keep sight of the fact that poor Alicia has been coping with a LOT and is also going through a traumatic breakup on top of everything else.**

 **It does mean I have a couple of options for you for the next chapter- I can give you another past chapter with Alicia announcing her pregnancy to the ED and her parents (which was originally going to be this one) or I can give you a present day one which I don't want to say too much about, but there's a fairly major moment for Alicia and Ethan. Please do feel you can let me know if you have a preference!**

 **As always, reviews would be fantastic, it always helps to know what you guys are thinking.**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	34. Chapter 34

***I can't remember if I've used this before for this story or Dante in the Midsts- GNCH is the Great North Children's Hospital, and the hospital I'm using for Alicia's time doing her paeds training in Newcastle.**

 **Chapter 34**

"Thank you so much for this, Mrs Beauchamp," Alicia smiles gratefully, ushers Chakra into the ED ahead of her. "I'm so sorry, I did try my mam but she couldn't drop everything last minute, she's away with friends and…"

"It's quite alright," Mrs Beauchamp assures her. "You don't need to apologise, I know only too well how it is trying to find emergency childcare in a major incident. I've cleared you some space in my office, Chakra, you can have my desk."

"Thank you."

"You're very welcome, sweetheart, it's not a problem. I'm sorry, I know this isn't much fun for you, is it, we just need all hands-on-deck this afternoon while we deal with this, and we definitely need your mum's expertise."

"She's got somewhere she needs to be at three forty-five," Alicia explains apologetically. "If I can take my break just before that, I'll take her over then, but I haven't got anyone to pick her up at six thirty, unless, I don't know, I could beg Bea if she's off-shift by then but she's already doing enough childcare for me at the moment, I could probably get away with picking her up half an hour late, if that helps…"

"That's fine. That's fine, I'm very grateful you've agreed to come in at all. You do whatever you need to do, it isn't a problem."

"What kind of major incident is it?" Chakra asks curiously, as Mrs Beauchamp leads them into her office.

"Oh… there's been a nasty coach crash on the motorway junction," Mrs Beauchamp explains carefully. "It was a school trip, so, well… "

"Is that why you need my mam?"

"Yes. Yes, that's why we need your mum," Mrs Beauchamp agrees, voice laced with considerable relief at Chakra's lack of more detailed questioning. "That's exactly why we need your mum. I'll see you in Resus three, Alicia, alright?"

"Sure, I'll be there in a minute." Alicia places her bag down on Mrs Beauchamp's desk, rummages. "Okay. I'm sorry about this, Chakra, I really am…"

"It's okay." Chakra presses into her side like a small child, body language telling a very different story.

Alicia sighs.

She can't keep up, at the moment. Ever since she went missing, ever since she got her back, it's as though one minute she's fine and wants to be treated a good couple of years older than she is, completely unfazed by the whole thing, and the next she's clinging to her as though she's afraid the world will end if they're separated for even a second.

"I'm going to be in Resus, and then I'm probably going to be in the Paeds ED," she tells her, desperate to offer some reassurance. "But Auntie Bea's working down here, and Charlie, so if you need anything, you just go and stand at the admin desk out there, you know that, don't you? I don't want you wandering down to Paeds by yourself, okay? You promise?"

"Why?"

"Because hospitals aren't always safe places for children to be wandering round by themselves, Chak. So do you promise?"

Chakra nods, clings on tighter. "Promise."

"Good girl. And if you want me, you only need to ask, someone will come down and get me, alright?" She pulls out the maths workbook, turns the pages, hands over the stationary. "I can't promise I'll come straight away, I might be busy with a patient, but I promise I'll come as soon as I can. So do you reckon you can have a go at these, while I'm gone? Yeah? We went through fractions together, didn't we? And if you get that done before I manage to come back to see you, then you could write me a story? What do you think?"

"Can I write you a story about… about a princess, in Celtic times, who fights the Anglo-Saxon people when they come and invade from Germany because she's better at fighting than all the men warriors?"

"You can write me a story about whatever you like, okay? But that sounds… exciting, I can't wait to read that one. So are you going to be alright? Yeah? Auntie Bea's on minors, so she'll be around more. And I'll come back and see you when I get a free moment, I promise."

She slips back out of Mrs Beauchamp's office with a heavy feeling in her heart, sighs, mentally scans the admin station.

"Charlie?" she asks carefully, searches through her handbag. "Sorry, I know everyone's rushed off their feet today… if I give you this, do you think you could try to get Chakra to eat in an hour or so? I don't know when I'm going to be able to get out of Paeds to check on her…"

"Not a problem," Charlie assures her. "Would Bea be better, do you think? I'm happy to do it, of course, but if you think she might respond better to Bea…"

"Probably," Alicia agrees. "If she's free and she doesn't mind, that would be amazing. But just… you'll know this already, but if you do it, watch her, yeah? And watch the bin. And…" she voice is shaking now, tears beginning to form she wasn't anticipating. "And, you know… anywhere else she might be able to… listen, I've got to go, I'm supposed to be in Paeds…"

Alicia turns away, practically runs down the corridor to the staff changing area, before it's too late and the flood gates open.

"This is Maisie Andrews, aged nine, involved in a coach crash about ninety minutes ago. Right leg was trapped as a result of the crash, extracted by the fire crew twenty minutes ago. Severe laceration to the lower leg on the right side, dislocation to the knee on the left side, diminished radial pulse, suspected head injury. She's had TXA, fluids running, five mg of morphine," Rash briefs her, patient already transferred from the paramedics by the time Alicia makes it down to Paeds.

"Alright. Maisie, can you hear me? My name's Dr Munroe, can you open your eyes for me?"

Her patient blinks hazily, nods.

"Okay. Okay, Maisie, I need you to stay nice and still for me. Do you have any pain in your neck? You do? Alright. Can we get her booked in for a CT, head and neck, please. I'm just going to take a look at your knee, Maisie, I need you to keep nice and still, just like you are now, okay? Good girl."

"Are you thinking she could be paralysed?" The woman stood at the side of the resus bay asks, voice panicked.

"It's just a precautionary measure at this state," Alicia tries to reassure her. "Are you her mam?"

The woman nods. "I came as soon as her school called me, but the delay getting her into hospital was ridiculous…"

"It would have been very difficult to get her out of the crash scene," Alicia explains, glances up momentarily. "I know it can seem that way, but the paramedics would have needed to be certain they weren't exacerbating her injuries before they got her out. So your knee is dislocated, Maisie, do you know what that means? I'm going to fix that for you now and it'll start to feel better, but I need you to keep nice and still for me. Can we get her some entonox, please?"

"Do you have kids?" Maisie's mother eyes her warily, still unconvinced.

"I have a daughter," Alicia tells her quietly, smiles gratefully as Jurgita brings over the Entonox mask. "She's about the same age as Maisie. So I'm going to put this over your face, Maisie, and I want you to breathe nice and normally, alright? This is going to hurt a bit, I'm afraid, but if you keep taking nice deep breaths of this for me, it's going to help. You're doing brilliantly."

"And how would you feel, if your little girl was caught up in an accident like this and the emergency services took over an hour to get her out? Every minute counts with spinal injuries, that's what everyone always says on the medical dramas…"

"Yes," Alicia agrees. "Yes, you're right. But it's equally important that she isn't moved in a way that might make her injuries worse. The paramedics wouldn't have delayed getting her out if they didn't think it was the safest option. Just relax for me, Maisie." She manipulates, watches her patient carefully as her knee snaps back into place. "Good girl. Good girl, you did really, really well."

"Is Chloe going to be alright?" Maisie asks shakily, removes the mask.

"Chloe's her best friend," her mother explains. "She was on the coach next to her, she was unconscious…"

"Well, another doctor will be looking after Chloe at the moment, but I'll find out how she's doing in a bit and I'll let you know, okay? We're going to take you down for a special scan, so we can look inside your head, in a minute, and we'll take it from there."

"Doctor Munroe!" Jurgita calls from the doorway urgently, expression grave. "Dr Munroe, we have cardiac arrest in resus one."

She slips back into Mrs Beauchamp's office silently, drained, half an hour later, not entirely convinced that this is fair.

She wouldn't be able to do this, normally. She shouldn't have Chakra in work with her at all, not really, she should be at school… that's a whole separate issue in itself…

It isn't really fair, she knows it isn't. But at the same time, she has to know she's alright.

"Mammy!" Chakra looks up, smiles happily, blissfully unaware. "I finished maths, and I've started writing my story, but I haven't done very much yet because Auntie Bea's patient said I could watch her pull the knife out of her hand if I wanted to."

"They did? That was nice of them," Alicia tells her, fights to keep her voice light, moves around to stand behind her, wraps her arms around her. "And does Mrs Beauchamp know Auntie Bea took you into cubicles again?"

"No, she said it was best if it stayed our secret." Chakra pauses, blinks up at her mother. "Did somebody die?"

"… Yes," Alicia tells her at last. "Yes, sweetheart, somebody died."

"Did you try to save them?"

"Yes. Yes, but sometimes… sometimes that isn't enough." She hugs her tightly, shudders a little, can't quite shake the mental image, the little girl on the resus bed, her mother sobbing outside, that could have been her, just a week ago that could have been her…

"Mammy?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

"I love you too. I'm going to have to go back to work now, okay? Are you going to be alright? I'm going to come and get you in a bit and take you to gym, I'll be back really, really soon."

* * *

She waits in the car by the entrance for the first five minutes, ventures out only when forced to conclude that Chakra isn't coming out to meet her, that she's going to have to go in and get her herself.

It's not that she wants to avoid Miss Yekaterina. It's not that in the slightest, not anymore; though Alicia has to admit she's been guilty of that in the past, that isn't what it's about today- far from it. (Even after enduring Miss Yekaterina's adult ballet for beginners last week.) She has a new-found respect for her, all things considered.

It's just that this afternoon has been challenging to say the least, and she just wants to get Chakra, take her home and sleep before she has to drive to London tomorrow; is that really so awful of her?

Reluctantly, emotionally drained, Alicia drags herself inside, checks the changing rooms, finds Chakra's bag and gathers her things together, slowly, filled with that same unmistakable, apprehension, pushes open the doors at the end of the entrance hall.

"Dr Munroe? You can come in, please."

Obediently, Alicia steps inside, lurks in front of the door.

Chakra stands next to Miss Yekaterina, expression anxious, pants.

"Is there a problem?" Alicia asks, eyes them both carefully.

"She is not using core muscles. Usually, she have beautiful pirouette," Miss Yekaterina explains. "And arabesque, and leg extension, because she have good core strength. Today she is sloppy, and it is because she does not try properly. I do not understand why she does not do it today. You always do this properly before, don't you?" she says to Chakra, who just watches her silently. "We show your mother. So you stand in fifth, and you relevé. You see?" she asks Alicia. "You remember relevé from Thursday, yes? Usually, she balance. Today she cannot balance because she does not use her core properly. She needs to engage here. She has leotard today, yes? She will not take off jumper, either," she explains, meets Alicia's eyes for a moment with quiet concern. "Chakra?"

"I'm sorry." Chakra looks down at the floor, voice laced with something Alicia can't quite place.

"I tell you already, you are not in trouble. But I know you can do this, you normally do, so you do it on Thursday for me, please? Yes? It is all in your head, I know you can do this properly. You do not want mental block, so you go home, you rest, you come back on Thursday and you do this properly. I will not have laziness, you understand? If you are tired, you need to sleep more. You can go."

Chakra doesn't need to be told twice, practically bolts out the door, head down, silent.

Alicia sighs.

"You tired?" she asks gently. "Chak?"

Chakra shrugs, climbs into the passenger seat.

"You're not still feeling cold, are you? Is that why…?"

Chakra shakes her head, kicks off her shows, pulls her knees up to her chest.

"Oh, okay," Alicia sighs softly, reaches out to squeeze her hand just for a moment, before she turns the key in the ignition. "Okay, I think I've been there, too."

"When?"

"When I was pregnant with you. Body image is shit, isn't it?"

"Isn't that a bad word?" Chakra asks, watches her mother intently from the passenger seat as she indicates, turns back out onto the main road.

"Yes, it is, but it's totally justifiable in this context. You know what context means, right?"

"Like, what we're talking about now?"

"You're so clever, aren't you? You must have got it from Ethan, you certainly didn't get it from me."

"You're a consultant."

"Yep, but you're a whole extra level of intelligent. I think we need to get you home and let you sleep, don't we? I know it's rubbish, Chak, I know. I really do. It's going to get better. I know it probably doesn't feel like it now, but it will. You just need to keep being really brave for me, like you have been, okay? It's going to get better."

She manages to get Chakra into her own bed, that night, and yes, she has to sit there next to her and hold her hand until her breathing levels out and she's safely off to sleep, but it's still progress, and Alicia is determined to view it as such.

If they can just keep this up, if they can just get to the point at which she's happily sleeping in her own bed again, deal with that problem, maybe everything else won't seem so overwhelmingly desperate.

There's just the slight issue of the latest voicemail from Chakra's head teacher she picked up today once her shift was over, summoning her in for a meeting next week to discuss 'moving forward,' as though an hour together in her office is going to solve everything.

It's school, Alicia is sure of it. Everything got so much worse the moment she told Chakra that going back to school was a possibility, and now she's promised her it won't be happening, suddenly the sleep issue seems a little better, even if everything else is still all so hopeless.

What if she just deregisters her? Alicia wonders. What if she just tells the local council or whoever it is who deals with this stuff that she's home educating? Except she can't do that, she can't keep relying on everyone else to look after Chakra while she's at work, that isn't a long-term solution…

She just doesn't know what to do for the best anymore.

Sighing, she pours herself a glass of wine, curls up on the sofa, calls Ethan.

She used to do this.

Back when they first got together, properly together, after Eddie, bar their brief break whilst she was in Manchester, this was their evening routine. If they weren't already spending the evening at each other's places, anyway. They'd catch each other between shifts, on breaks, however their schedules worked out, call each other and talk about absolutely everything, nothing at all and everything in between.

Life wasn't simple then, not quite, but it was an awful lot simpler.

"I'm sorry," she blurts out, as Ethan picks up the phone. "I'm sorry, I know I said I'd call you earlier, and I meant to, I really did, but then I got called into a major incident and I had no one to take Chakra, so I spent the best part of this afternoon running between resus and Paeds and Mrs Beauchamp's office to check up on her…"

"It's alright. It's alright, you don't have to apologise. You okay?" Ethan asks gently, and in that moment, all Alicia wants is for him to be here with her, Huntington's or no Huntington's, because it doesn't make a difference, not really.

He's still Ethan. And maybe one day, he won't be, maybe one day this disease will eat him alive and that will be the end of it.

But right now, he's still Ethan, and she wants him here with her desperately.

"Coach crash at the motorway junction," she tells him numbly. "School trip. A child died, Ethan, and all I could think was that we were nearly in that position with Chakra last week…"

"But we weren't," Ethan reminds her. "We weren't, you can't torture yourself like that. How's she been today?"

"Honestly? She was doing okay this morning," Alicia sighs. "Then I got the call from Mrs Beauchamp, and I had to drag her into work with me, and… well, even then, she was okay, actually, thinking about it. Better than she has been recently, anyway. She didn't have the best gym practice, she was a bit upset when I picked her up. I think… I don't know what I think. She's just tired, maybe, I don't know, lack of energy's finally catching up with her, I guess. She's been okay, up until now, I suppose she's been lucky… I just don't know what I'm doing with her," Ethan she confesses hopelessly. "I don't know what I'm doing, I did a placement on an eating disorder unit when I was at GNCH, for god's sake, and I still don't know what to do with my own daughter…"

"You've got her private referral tomorrow, right?"

"Tomorrow afternoon," Alicia confirms. "Don't remind me, I haven't even started packing, yet, I'm going to have to do that tomorrow morning. But I've booked a hotel room, it's only around the corner from your place. I should be there by six-ish, I think, I don't know if…"

"I can book us a table somewhere?"

"That would be amazing. I'm sorry, I was going to be more organised than this…"

"Don't be so silly. You're the one doing all the parenting, it's the least I can do. We'll know more after tomorrow, won't we? You're doing everything you can for her, Alicia. That's all you can do."

"And if she was one of my patients, that's exactly what I'd be telling her parents, I know that…"

"It's not that simple, is it?" Ethan sighs. "I know. I know, I understand. But you have to try to believe it. One day, when she's older, when she's over this, she's going to look back and she'll realise how lucky she was to have you…"

"Will she?" Alicia asks desperately. "You're assuming she will get over this, what if this is it? What if this follows her for the rest of her life, what if I've screwed her up…"

"You haven't screwed her up, darling, don't say that…"

She's upset. She's tired and she's upset and it's all flowing out of her uncontrollably, despite her better judgement, all her efforts to protect him.

"Not intentionally!" Alicia protests. "Not intentionally, but it still could be me, what if it's something I've said, what if been giving her all the wrong messages for years and I haven't even realised it, or what if it _is_ genetic and it's all my fault, what if I messed her up with my shitty DNA and she never had a hope in hell…"

She trails off, suddenly painfully aware of what she's just said.

There's silence for a few moments- and it must be seconds, mere seconds, but to Alicia it feels like an utter lifetime.

"What you said, the other night," Ethan says at last, slowly, carefully, calculated. "When we talked about family history of eating disorders… we never finished our conversation, did we?"

"It doesn't matter," she covers hurriedly, well and truly panicked. "It doesn't matter, Ethan, honestly, forget I said anything…"

"It matters, Alicia. Of course it matters. What did you mean?"

"Honestly, Ethan, leave it…"

"Alicia…"

"It really doesn't matter, look. I shouldn't have said anything, okay, it's nothing you need to worry about…"

"You're worrying me now…"

"You don't need to! You don't need to worry, Ethan, there's nothing to worry about, it doesn't… it doesn't concern you…"

"No?" Ethan retorts. "Well, whatever it is, you've just implied it concerns my daughter, so regardless of our relationship and wherever we're going or not going these days, I'd beg to differ, actually…"

Does that mean he doesn't want her? Does that mean this has all just been about Chakra, all of it, does that mean he's only been spending time with her because he wants access to their daughter…

"Just leave it, Ethan, please…"

"What isn't it you aren't telling me, Alicia? I thought we said we were going to do this together from now on, I thought we agreed no more secrets!"

She has to tell him.

She has to tell him now, if she doesn't she'll have lost him forever, it will all be over before they've even had a proper chance to try…

She can hear the frustration building in his voice.

"I…" She trails off, hands shaking, half-afraid she's going to drop the phone. "It happened to me, too," she admits shakily at last. "I had… well, I never had a specific diagnosis, but… it was bad, for a while, I had some counselling…"

"… When?"

"When… when I was pregnant with Chakra…"

"Jesus, Alicia…"

"Do you think I don't feel bad enough about it already?" Alicia snaps. "It was eight years ago, Ethan, there's absolutely no point doing this now…"

"Oh, you think? There's every reason to do this now, Alicia, the risks, during pregnancy, for one, how can you be so…"

"Do you think I didn't get enough of that from the midwife? It's not like I did it deliberately, I didn't exactly wake up one morning and decide oh, you know what, I'll just…"

"That's hardly the point, Alicia, and you know it! I mean, are you really in the best position to be dealing with her issues by yourself right now? Do you need…"

"It was eight years ago, for god's sake! Eight years ago, and I'd argue I'm in a better position than most people, actually, I get it, for one…"

"That's exactly what I'm trying to say to you!" Ethan protests, shouts. "I can't… she's _seven_ , she's seven, Alicia, and she's anorexic, and her diet's restricted enough as it is, and given the circumstances are you really in a position to say for definite she isn't going to…"

"Oh, don't go there. Don't even go there, there is nothing wrong with her diet, she was completely healthy before all this started. I've been through all that with more nutritionists and so-called paeds specialists spouting utter crap than I can keep track of. She was fine until October last year, You haven't been here, remember? I've been bringing her up by myself the last eight years, it's been up to me how I raise her, so you can judge me all you like but you do not get to judge me for an illness I had that was completely out of my control, so don't even think of trying to make this about that…"

"Okay, okay, so that was uncalled for, I'm sorry. Sorry… you've just… you've already told me she was a low birth rate even for a preemie, and now you're telling me on top of everything else she would have had to cope with then you were… sorry, I'm trying to get my head around this, I should have…"

"She could well have been tiny because I coped with being pregnant so badly I was starving myself on and off for the best part of it like a complete selfish cow, yep, I'm aware of that, thank you…"

"I thought we weren't keeping secrets from each other anymore, and you're telling me you were…"

"I'm telling you I was failing her before she was even born, yes! I'm telling you if it is genetic, if there's any factual basis for that, she's almost certainly got it from me, do you think I haven't worked that out for myself, Ethan? Do you really think I'm not already angry with myself enough? Because I have done nothing but blame myself for how she is now for months. Nothing. Do you know what, do you want full disclosure, while we're at it?" she rants angrily, figures she might as well just go for it, since he's going to think so little of her now already. "Since apparently all I am to you is a baby making machine and…"

"That is _not_ what I meant, and you know it…"

"Oh, it isn't, is it? Only everything you've just said since I told you has been about how it affected her and not how it affected me, so all things considered, you can see why I just thought you wanted a list of all the ways I…"

"Alicia…"

"I got hammered, when I was twenty-six weeks, and it wasn't the first time I drank after I found out either, are you going to lecture me on the impact of alcohol on…"

"Will you stop doing this to yourself?" Ethan shouts, and perhaps it's meant to be caring, comforting, but Alicia can't see it, not now, too far gone for that. "You're torturing yourself, Alicia, and it's…"

"No, I won't!" Alicia retorts angrily. "You don't get to walk away from it all this time! I must have given up smoking about ten times when I was pregnant, and yes, before you ask, I'm aware I promised you I was going to quit months before we even knew about Chakra, I'm aware you think it's a revolting habit, only I was so fucking stressed, Ethan, you have no idea, so bang on about me starving her of oxygen every few awful shifts all you like…"

"That wasn't what I meant, Alicia, I just meant, I didn't realise you were..."

"You didn't realise I was quite as useless as I actually am?"

"No, darling, I mean…"

"I don't want to hear it, Ethan! I already know I screwed up, I don't need you to remind me! It's my fault, okay? So I'm a crap mother, are you happy now? I'm more than aware it's probably my fault she's like this and this isn't the first time I've damaged her with my stupidity either, is that what you wanted me to say?"

"Alicia…"

"I don't want to hear it!" Alicia sobs. "I don't want to hear it, okay! I know. Look, just… I don't know, just... if you can't…"

And then she's sobbing helplessly, ends the call while she still can, throws her phone across the sofa and curls up, hopeless, defeated.

There's no coming back from this, she's sure of it.

He's never going to forgive her, not now, she's lost him…

She's lost him.

She's lost him all over again.

 **I am very, very, very sorry, but it had to be done! The argument scene of this chapter has taken about the usual time it takes me to write one of these chapters all by itself, I really hope it comes across as in-character. It was incredibly difficult trying to get the balance right between the two of them. I think a lot of you know already that one of the themes I particularly like exploring with Ethan and Alicia is communication, or lack thereof, just because it always seems to be the root cause of all their problems on the show.**

 **Thank you to Katie, Lewisek18 and my three guests for reviewing the last chapter, your thoughts are always so appreciated. To my guest reviewer who asked about the stair fall, yes, you will be getting a stairfall chapter in the not too distant future, which will be a flashback and show what actually happened. But hopefully by then you might have an idea of what happened, and how it's affected Ethan. I'm also so glad that one worked as a chapter, you got exactly what I was trying to convey with past Alicia and her aborted one-night stand. She doesn't want anyone else, she's just on self destruct and she's lonely and she's scared she's never going to get back to 'normal.'**

 **As ever, I would love to know what you make of this chapter, and I hope you all don't hate me too much for the ending!**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter 35**

 **27 weeks**

"Is it supposed to be a dinosaur?" Alicia's latest paeds patient asks, giggling, clearly thoroughly unimpressed with her surgical glove puppet.

"Hey, what do you mean, supposed to be?" Alicia teases. "Isn't it obvious?"

"No! It looks like maybe it's a dinosaur because these could be its… its… those scales that stand up on the back of some dinosaurs. But not really."

"It's that rubbish, is it? You're right, it's definitely not my best effort. But look, Nurse Hyde is all done with your bloods and you didn't even notice, so it worked, didn't it?" She turns to the mother. "So I'm going to need you to wait here until we get his bloods back, we'll know more then, but in the meantime…"

Alicia trails off, suddenly aware of Bea standing apprehensively in the doorway onto the Paeds ward.

"I'll be back in just a moment," she tells her patient and his mother, crosses the room to meet Bea in the corridor. "What is it?"

"You haven't told your mam and dad yet, have you?" Bea asks worriedly.

"What? No, no, I… well, I've been meaning to, you… you know…"

"I thought so. They're… they're in cubicles now, they're asking after you, I think someone must have told them you're on shift today..."

"What…? Hang on, they're… they're together? What's…"

"Yep. Yep, definitely together. It's your mam, she's sliced her finger open with a kitchen knife but it's fine, I've just patched her up, they think I'm off to the pharmacy for antibiotics right now…"

"For god's sake, why does she do it?" Alicia rants. "He's _gay_ , we've been through this so many times now, there is absolutely no point taking him back over and over when he's only going to end up ditching her again in a few weeks, because he's _gay_..."

"They've been back together three weeks, apparently," Bea reports apologetically. "They're calling it 'companionship,' or something weird like that. I wasn't really listening, I was trying to keep a lookout in case you came back down to cubicles. Presumably your dad and Martin have had another falling out, I didn't like to ask. Your dad said they've been calling you, they wanted to invite you over to tell you the good news, as they're calling it. Don't think I'm supposed to be telling you, but, you know, I kind of figured you wouldn't consider it the amazing, wonderful surprise they're making out like it is. But they're a bit worried about you. Your mam was quizzing me for your shift patterns, they're talking about dropping in once we've finished for the day."

"They _can't…_ "

Bea grimaces sympathetically. "Have you thought about how you're going to tell them?"

"Not really, but I can't just… they're going to take one look at _this_ and…" Alicia trails off abruptly, suddenly aware that she's patting her bump with more irritancy than she intended, beyond frustrated, mildly panicked, sick of it all, sick of everything, rapidly retracts her hands, folds her arms, realises she's only emphasising the unwelcome curve of her belly, ends up fidgeting awkwardly instead. "They're going to know straight away and they'll be so upset I didn't tell them sooner and it'll all just be awful, unless I…"

"You can't do it over the phone," Bea warns her gently. "You need to tell them face to face. Look, why don't I keep holding them off for now, I'll tell them you're caught up with an emergency down here and you're going to be a while, I'll make something up. They can come over tonight instead, you can tell them at home, they won't be able to tell if you put a baggy jumper on. It'll be fine. But either way… they aren't going to be angry…"

"They've both been desperate for a grandchild since forever, I'm twenty-seven weeks and they haven't got a clue, Bea, I think they're going to be pretty close."

"No, they won't," Bea insists. "You've just told me they're desperate for a grandchild, Leesh, they aren't going to be angry. Okay, so they might be a bit upset you didn't tell them earlier, but you're going to tell them the whole story about Ethan now, right? They don't count, they're your mam and dad, you can tell them even if you don't think it's fair to tell everyone here. Okay? They'll understand."

"I just didn't want… they would have been so upset, if I'd had to terminate…"

"I know. I know, I know, it's alright. They'll be over the moon, Alicia, it'll be fine. They might be a little bit upset at first, but they'll get it, and then they'll be so ecstatic they're getting a granddaughter in a few months that they'll have forgotten all about it after five minutes. You've actually done them a favour, if you think about it. Instead of having to wait six months, they only have to wait, what, two and a bit, now, if you end up getting booked in for a caesarean. This is the last thing you need to worry about, okay? Everything's going to be fine."

Alicia shakes her head, far from reassured. "They're still going to be livid with me for ignoring them for months, and I know Mam didn't buy the story I told her about…"

"Well, you haven't been ignoring them exactly, have you? You've been texting and calling, haven't you, you've just been avoiding face to face contact."

"I think that's just as bad, in my mam and dad's books…"

"They'll understand," Bea insists. "Once you explain, once they realise it's all connected, it'll be fine. They'll get it. It's an awful situation, Alicia. No one else can tell you how you should or shouldn't be coping with it, okay? Even your mam and dad. You're doing fine."

She wants to believe that, but she can't, she just can't. "I wouldn't have been ordered off to counselling if I was doing fine, would I…"

"Alicia. You've had the few months from hell, it's absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. You're doing just fine. I'll hold them off for you, okay? I'll tell them you're in resus, they won't ask too many questions."

"I was thinking about telling everyone here tonight, for god's sake, why does something like this happen every time I psych myself up to tell them…"

"You could do it tomorrow?" Bea suggests. "You're in tomorrow too, right? Or, pub after work, announce it then, your parents can come over later and then you've got it all out of the way? Even gives you an excuse to slip away from the pub if you find it's all a bit much. It'll be better. Once you've made it official, it'll be better. You can accept everyone's offers of making your life easier, for a start…"

"I don't need anyone to make my life easier, Bea, I'm not ill, I'm perfectly capable of…"

"Perfectly capable, sure. I don't think anything's questioning that. But you've been on shift for what, three hours, and your back's killing you already, am I right?"

"Bea…" Alicia protests, suddenly realises her hands are pressing into the small of her back, dull aching refusing to leave her alone.

It's all been so much better, over the last week or so. It feels as though she's started to turn a corner of sorts, as though she can breathe again, as though all this is starting to become bearable, and she's no longer quite wishing the next ten weeks or however long she ends up having left away.

Two counselling sessions in and despite her initial reservations, it does seem to be making a difference to her mental state, as is Ruby's insistence on taking her with her to her yoga classes (she wasn't so against that part, not really, got into the habit all by herself after Eddie using youtube videos, determined to do something not for work, not for career progression, but for her, and she stuck at it until her exams were looming, and then Ethan dropped the Huntington's bombshell and life as she knew it just fell apart). `She's even started to reach a point at which looking in the mirror no longer feels like a truly terrible idea, and she couldn't have even imagined that just a few weeks ago; that has to be a sign of improvement, if nothing else.

She just wants to keep going like this a little longer. Is that really too much to ask? Probably, Alicia decides. It probably is, at this stage; she's coming up to three quarters of the way through now, or more than, if she's forced down the caesarean route, and it's arguably getting a little ridiculous. But then she doesn't count those first twenty-two weeks, can't count them, however much she tries, because everything was just such an uncertain mess back then.

She really does want to try to enjoy the time that's left. She's never doing it again, if nothing else; Alicia's mind is already firmly made up on that one. No matter what, for various reasons, she is never doing it again, this is it. This is it, and she desperately wants to try and enjoy it like she's supposed to, just a tiny bit, but while it's all becoming more bearable, it certainly isn't quite that simple yet, either.

She just wants to keep it all to herself a little longer- and Alicia appreciates the ridiculous irony of that, she really does.

Perhaps if she just keeps it secret a little longer, perhaps she might be able to come to terms with it all a little more, even lose the self-consciousness.

Then again, sometimes it feels as though it's all too deeply engrained.

Alicia hesitates.

"I just... I know I need to do it…"

"Yep. Yep, you do," Bea agrees. "I'll arrange for everyone to meet in the pub, if you want? Would that make it easier? It would be my thing, you wouldn't have to be the centre of attention. Well, you would for a bit, obviously, but we could manage it together?"

"I think you understand me better than I do at the moment. I'm sorry," Alicia confesses guiltily. "I'm sorry, I know I've been…"

"Hey, that's what best friends are for, right? You haven't been anything, lovely, you've got nothing to apologise for."

"I just want it to be over, Bea," she confesses. "I know it isn't exactly going to be easy once she's born, I know I'm probably being selfish, but I… I just…"

"You're not being selfish. You're so not being selfish, Leesh, that isn't selfishness."

"But I am," Alicia insists. "I am being selfish, some women go through a stupid number of IVF cycles and still it doesn't work out for them and they go through hell accepting they can't get pregnant, and I'm…"

"… Also completely normal," Bea finishes for her. "I've done an Obs and Gynae stint, remember? Some women enjoy the whole thing and others can't wait for it to be over, it's normal. All your baby needs is for you to love her. Okay? And I don't think there's any doubt that you do."

"Mam's going to think so…"

"No, she isn't, lovely. She really, really isn't. For all you know, she might have even felt the same way when she was pregnant, it's _normal_. You've got absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. You just need to tell your parents, and they'll be over the moon, and it'll probably be such a massive weight off your shoulders that your stress levels will drop by about half. There's no way they're going to be anything but supportive, Alicia, I promise they won't. They've been bombarding me with questions ever since I took your mam into cubicles, they're just worried about you, they just want to know you're alright."

"If they start getting all… all OTT about it… I just can't bear the whole obsessive fussing thing…"

"Oh, believe me, I've worked that out," Bea teases. "Then you explain to them all that stuff makes you feel uncomfortable, and if they care about you as much as I know they do, they'll respect that. You need to stop worrying, okay? Everything's going to be fine. I'm going to have to head back down to cubicles, alright, they're going to start getting suspicious if I'm not back soon. So I'll tell them you're tied up right now and there's no point hanging around because you're going to be hours, but you'll call them once you get a free moment. Yeah? How does that sound?"

"You shouldn't have to be doing this for me, Bea…"

"Well, maybe not, if you really want to insist. But I'm your best friend, or I better be, anyway, because you're mine. And you shouldn't have to be going through any of this, either." She squeezes Alicia's shoulders gently, reassuring. "I'll finish patching up your mam and get her and your dad out of here, and then I'll get everyone to agree to come to the pub with us after work, and we can do the announcement, and it'll all be over with and you can breathe again, you know it'll make you feel better. I'll come back and let you know when your parents are gone. Remember to take your next break, yeah?"

"Like I've got time for that," Alicia sighs under her breath, waits until Bea is safely out of earshot.

Her parents couldn't have picked a worse day for it, all things considered. She's still waiting for paeds to send down the consultant they promised her when she first arrived on shift, on her own and having to resort to dragging Elle or Dylan down from the main ED whenever she needs their expertise, Mrs Beauchamp on leave and still a consultant down and locum dependent, ever since…

Ever since Ethan left.

Why is that still so hard to say, even to herself?

It isn't even all that much of a lie to say that she's tied up in the paeds ED and can't get away to see them, not really. She's going to be lucky if she gets five minutes to herself before paeds finally get their act together and send her down a consultant, let alone a lunch break, despite Bea's thoughts on the matter.

Alicia hates to admit it, but perhaps Mrs Beauchamp's insistence on ensuring she actually gets her breaks every shift has been making more of a difference over the last few weeks than she previously thought.

Six more hours, she tells herself, rummages for a bag of potassium chloride. Six more hours and then this shift will be over, she'll endure an hour in the pub and finally get the whole pregnancy thing out in the open, and they can all think she was trying and failing to cover it up because she was contemplating an abortion, or adoption, or whatever they like, she doesn't care. And then she can go home, she can go home and sleep and she'll worry about her parents another day, she's just too bloody tired and her body seems to have lost the ability to switch between shift patterns and her ankles feel about five times bigger than normal and her back aches and…

It's only as she's heading back to her patient, forcing herself to focus when her mind only wants to wander to how on earth she's going to tell her parents, that Alicia realises she can't remember the last time she felt any movement.

It's fine, she tells herself. It's fine, she'd know if there was something wrong, surely? She just hasn't been paying attention, she's been rushed off her feet coping in paeds with just the F1s and the nursing team and she hasn't been paying attention, there has been movement, she's just missed it…

Hasn't she?

"I can't get rid of them," Bea apologises shiftily, reappearing in Paeds a while later. "I'm sorry, I tried. Your mam's convinced there's something wrong and she's refusing to leave until she's seen you, I've tried telling her I'll get you to drop by and see them later but she isn't having it, she… well, she said you've promised to do that about a hundred times since you were discharged from this place," she explains awkwardly. "Sorry. They're still in cubicles, it's actually rather quiet down there for once. I tried telling them you've got a difficult one in paeds and you could be hours yet, but your dad just said they haven't got any plans today. I don't know if you want to just come down briefly and say hi to them, you don't have to tell them…"

"You do realise seeing them and telling them are basically the same thing in scrubs?" Alicia protests, panic building within her at the mere thought of the confrontation she's almost certain is inevitable now. "There is no way they're going to let me just say hi and leave, absolutely no way, they'll know instantly…"

"Nah, they won't. Put your hoodie on and tell them you've only got a couple of minutes free, it'll be fine," Bea tells her, though Alicia can tell she isn't entirely convinced herself. "Or, you know, don't, leave it until the end of your shift, if you think it's less obvious out of scrubs…"

"It is less obvious out of scrubs, Bea, you don't have to spare my feelings. No, I can't do that," Alicia sighs. "I can't make them hang around until the end of my shift, that's ridiculous. Even if they're the ones refusing to go home. Why can't they just take a hint…"

"Because they're your mam and dad, and they care about you, and however old you get, you're basically still their baby," Bea finishes for her. "They're just being protective, Leesh. Do you want me to cover for you down here, you can go and get it over with?"

"Do you mind? Aren't you supposed to be on your break?" Alicia worries. "I can't make you sacrifice your break…"

"Hey, it's fine. You're only going to be worrying about it until you next get a free moment otherwise, right? See, I know you too well."

"You are an angel, thank you. I've got a teenager in bed two I'm hoping to get up to theatre soon, severe fracture to the left femur, just obs and pain management for the time being. And I'm waiting on CT scan results for the four-year-old in bed six, Connor, suspected seizure. Mother's an absolute demanding nightmare, nothing you do will be good enough, unless you can magically turn back time and prevent him having the seizure in the first place. And then, nine-year-old girl, Tia, with suspected…"

"I'll work it out, okay?" Bea tells her gently. "I'll be fine. Go on. Take as long as you need."

"Are you leaving?" Connor's mother calls out angrily as Alicia heads towards the door. "Dr Munroe! I thought you said…"

"I said I'll be back to speak to you as soon as I have Connor's CT scan results!" Alicia calls, patience wearing thin. "In the meantime, I'll leave you in the capable hands of Dr Kinsella and the nursing team."

"You can't go now, I thought you said we're waiting for Connor's results…"

"I'm entitled to a break. If the results come back while I'm gone, Dr Kinsella can…"

"And is she a Paeds doctor?" Connor's mother demands. "My understanding was you're the only children's doctor on shift today…"

"Like I said, I'm going on my break now, but Dr Kinsella has plenty of experience," Alicia tells her, breathes deeply, rapidly approaching breaking point. "Your son's in safe hands."

She slips into the staffroom, head down, paranoid that her parents are going to give up waiting for her and wander out into the corridor in search of her, try to have it out in the corridor, and she just doesn't have the energy for that.

Does it make her a terrible person? She's been avoiding her own parents, after all; that has to make her pretty close, if she's not already there.

She knows she's upset them, she isn't stupid. She hasn't seen them since she came out of hospital after the stair incident, for a start, since she had to tell them about Ethan, so caught up in the nightmare of persuading genetics she didn't have too much on her mind to think clearly and be sure she definitely wanted to go through with genetic testing, meant to take her mam up on her offer of taking her out to cheer her up and then her bump started to become too obvious and she told herself that she couldn't risk it, that there was no point her mam and dad knowing, that it was only going to upset them, upset her having to go through it all with them. She thought if she just kept it to phone calls and texts only, put them off, made out as though she was stupidly busy with work then they wouldn't ever need to know if it was bad news, and then if the results came back negative she could tell them then and everything would be fine.

She just wasn't counting on her head being such a mess about the whole thing, and now, so much time has passed since she should have told them that Alicia can't see how they're possibly not going to be angry with her, and rightly so.

She's messed everything up. She shouldn't have been so distracted by her exams, for a start, she should have realised she was pregnant at four weeks like a normal, responsible person, should have told Ethan then and they would have had plenty of time to deal with it before it all got so urgent, before she was visibly pregnant and Ethan had that to cope with on top of everything else. She should have been more careful in the first place, should have known that even the brief, pathetic attempt at sex they managed before she freaked out completely was enough to warrant the morning after pill, should have prevented the whole thing and then Ethan would still be here, they could be working through his diagnosis and the early stages together, just the two of them…

Except if she'd done that, she wouldn't have this baby, and despite how she feels about the whole pregnancy part, she wouldn't give her up for anything, not the baby she's going to get at the end of it, the only thing that seems to have kept her going for the last seven weeks.

Why can't she just have them both?

She's so messed everything up right from the off, Alicia curses herself, as she opens up her locker, hesitates for a moment, decides Ethan's old NHS hoodie he left behind that day is going to disguise everything better.

And besides, it's probably the only item of his clothing she has left she hasn't worn so much in the time he's been gone that it just smells like her now instead of him, and god knows she needs the comfort today.

She hesitates for a moment, sits on the bench in the deserted changing rooms, fastens the zip on Ethan's hoodie, breathes in, tries to convince herself it's dark enough and loose enough on her that she can get through a couple of minutes with her parents without them noticing, invite them round whenever her next day off is and buy herself some time to work out how on earth she's going to break the news to them.

And mentally prepare herself for picking up the pieces when her dad inevitably remembers he's gay, makes up with Martin and leaves her mam broken-hearted again, Alicia sighs to herself. As if she hasn't already got enough to be dealing with at the moment without having to be her mam's counsellor again…

Alicia crosses the room, locks herself in the nearest cubicle, sits still, hands rest over her bump, feels for movement she knows deep down isn't there.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, feels completely ridiculous. "I'm sorry, I know I'm shit at this, and I know you didn't ask to get stuck with me as your mam. I'd be annoyed with me too, if I were you. But if you could just move for me, so I know you're alright? Please?"

Nothing.

She can't even work out if this is normal or not; that's the stupid thing. Surely, there must usually be periods in which she doesn't feel anything? Perhaps this is just part of a completely normal pattern she's never picked up on before; isn't there something about counting kicks from twenty-eight weeks, or sometime around then? Or should she be doing it already, is this just yet another example of how hopeless she is…

Maybe her baby has been moving after all and she's just been so preoccupied with work and trying to run the Paeds ED without a consultant that she hasn't noticed it, maybe she's panicking now when in fact there's no reason to be worried at all.

She hates this part. There aren't even words to describe how much she hates this part, and this is just yet another reason. She knows what she's doing with a baby, an actual, proper newborn, whatever complications are involved- and yes, she's under no illusions, knows it will all be a horrible new level of terrifying when it's her own baby rather than another one of her patients, but all the same, at least she knows what she's doing.

She doesn't have a clue what she's doing with obstetrics beyond the basics she might encounter in the ED, and she feels so, so out of her depth at the best of times.

She can't panic about this now, Alicia tells herself. She needs to go and deal with her parents, she can't panic now or they'll pick up on it instantly and they'll be on high alert, searching for something wrong to an even greater extent than they otherwise would have been, she can't panic now…

She can't afford to panic, not just now, but telling herself that just isn't helping.

She just needs to get through this shift. Get through seeing her parents, somehow manage to hide it all from them and convince them everything's fine for now so she can deal with it all properly later, then keep Paeds afloat while bombarding the general Paeds department upstairs with phone calls pestering them to send her a consultant because she physically cannot keep running everything single-handedly and dashing between paeds and the main ED every time something is beyond her, just get through this shift and then if she still can't feel anything, she can…

It suddenly occurs to Alicia that she's effectively putting the needs of everyone else's child before her own for the next few hours, and as soon as that realisation hits her, out of nowhere she feels rather sick.

She couldn't seek reassurance even if she wanted to, Alicia reminds herself. Mrs Beauchamp is on annual leave, either she or Bea needs to be in the paeds ED and she doesn't want anyone else examining her, doesn't know if she physically _can_ allow anyone else to examine her without heading straight into panic territory and that's only going to make everything worse, and there's no way she's calling her midwife, absolutely no way she's spending any more time in that woman's company than necessary…

She's just going to have to leave it. She's just going to have to leave it all for now, try not to panic and forget about it, go and face her mam and dad and take it from there.

She's starting to see that maybe Bea is right after all.

Maybe life really will get a thousand times easier once it's all official and out in the open, maybe it is only a small price to pay for not having to walk around on eggshells trying to balance it all any longer, as reluctant as Alicia is to have to address it all properly.

She's almost made it worse for herself now. She's twenty-seven weeks, for goodness sake, it's gone well beyond ridiculous, if only she'd managed to get her head around telling them all weeks ago, when she first got the results back from genetics, if she'd only done it then when she wasn't so far gone she probably would have been given a far easier time of it than they're all going to give her for only announcing her pregnancy now, and rightly so, she can't really blame them…

She's so tired of it all, now.

She just wants it all to be over, to jump ahead to nine weeks' time or whenever it is she's going to be forced into a caesarean, just wants to have this part over with already, all of it, to have a tiny baby to focus upon rather than being the centre of attention herself.

She just wants him back.

And yet rationally, Alicia knows there's absolutely no chance of that happening now, and it's breaking her heart.

"Alicia? Oh, thank god," her mam exclaims almost the moment she pulls at the cubicle curtains, rushes off the hospital bed and over to greet her, as though up until that moment she had been expecting to find her desperately ill, and instantly Alicia feels horribly guilty. "We've been so worried about you, darling, come here," she instructs, attempts to pull her daughter into her arms tightly and Alicia squirms, suddenly realises this is a truly terrible idea and she can't go along with it if she wants to try and keep it all a secret until she can discuss it with her parents properly, pulls away just as she's hit with an urge out of nowhere to throw herself into her mam's arms and sob like a small child and she's so confused, can't work out if she's doing the right thing or not anymore.

"I haven't got long, Mam, I've got to get back to work," Alicia covers hurriedly, can tell just from the look on her mam's face she's caused considerable offence with her refusal to go along with her mam's attempt to hug her. "But I'm fine, honestly, I don't know why you're…"

"We haven't seen you since you were discharged from this place, Scooby, and that was weeks ago, that's why," her dad explains, watches her worriedly.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry. I've just been throwing myself into work, that's all, I just wanted to distract myself from it all, and we've all been having to take extra shifts, what with… you know, since he's left… I wasn't avoiding you, I promise I wasn't, I've just hardly had a free moment since I've been back in work. Are you okay? Bea said you were in here…"

"Oh, I'm fine, don't worry about me. It was a stupid accident, that's all, wasn't concentrating properly and sliced my finger open with a kitchen knife, but Bea's patched me up nicely. Are you sure you're alright?" Her mam squeezes her shoulders, looks her up and down as though she's been away for months and only just returned- and she really has, from her mam and dad's perspective, Alicia realises now, guilt only intensifies as she tries to imagine her own baby shutting her out for a few months in thirty years' time, can't get past the point of feeling as though she's never going to want to let her out of her sight, no matter how old she is. "You've been sounding… distant, on the phone…"

"And you don't think that's only to be expected?" Her dad asks. "They were together what, eighteen months, Jackie, you can't expect her to just get over him overnight…"

"No, no, I know that," her mam agrees. "Of course I know that. But we've missed you, darling, I would have come over and looked after you after you were discharged, you know I would have. Or if you just needed me to take you out for the day and take your mind off things, I would have done that, I still would, if you…"

"I'm okay, Mam. Honestly, I'm okay," Alicia tries to convince her. "It really wasn't that bad, it was only a dislocation and a few bruises…"

"There's nothing 'only' about that, as you of all people should know. You fell down the stairs, Alicia, it's a miracle it wasn't worse. You were back in work using that elbow far too soon last time you dislocated it, and look what happened then…"

"I'm fine, it wasn't as bad this time and I was actually sensible about the physio and everything, you don't need to worry. I'm sorry, I know I've been rubbish, work's just been so busy…"

"But you've been looking after yourself?" her mam worries. "You look like you've…"

Lost weight and simultaneously gained a ton around the middle, Alicia finishes for her in her head; she _needs_ to put her off the scent. "I'm _fine_ , Mam. So you two are back together, then?"

It's not a question, not really; even if Bea hadn't already briefed her, Alicia would have gathered that much from her parents' being here together, having watched them go through this cycle so many times over by now.

But still, it needs to be addressed. And Alicia figures that if she changes the subject now, and quickly, perhaps her parents will be so overjoyed at the prospect of sharing with her what must now be their thirtieth attempt at getting back together or something ridiculous like that, she might be able to distract them from her own mental state, the absence of Ethan she's so far told them so little as to the circumstances of, and the bulge beneath Ethan's NHS hoodie she's adopted as hers that they urgently need to talk about, but that moment is most definitely not now.

"Did Bea tell you the good news?" her mam beams, reaches for her dad's hand. "We're giving it another go, aren't we, Howard?"

"I've been a fool, Scooby," her dad tells her with surprising sincerity, though there's no doubt in Alicia's mind this latest attempt at making a go of it is going to last a couple of months absolute maximum. "I've been such a fool, your mam's the only one I want to spend the rest of my life with."

Alicia closes her eyes, breathes slowly, still trying to get her head around this latest development, that they really are making a go of things again, after how it all ended last time, and the time before that, and god only knows how many times before that, ever since her dad's revelation. "But you're _gay_ , Dad…"

"That doesn't mean we can't be with each other. It's about companionship, really," her mam explains happily, and Alicia has to wonder whether her mam actually believes it herself, or just desperately wants to believe it's really going to work out this time, to pretend for a little longer. "We're not saying we're ever going to be together like that again, but we're both invested in our relationship on a deeper level, aren't we, Howard?"

Alicia pulls a face, resists the temptation to point out that this is far, far too much information. "You've been here so many times before, Mam, and every time…"

"I'm serious this time," her dad tells her. "I've come to my senses, I made a terrible mistake, leaving your mother…"

"And which time are you talking about, Dad?" Alicia groans in despair. "The first time, the last time, the time before that…"

"Oh, don't be like this, darling," her mam sighs. "We've been waiting to tell you until we saw you, it's going to be different this time. Your dad's booked us a Mediterranean cruise in April, you know I've always wanted to…"

Alicia closes her eyes. "You and Martin had another falling out then? Dad?"

"Does that matter, Scooby? It's your mam I want to spend the rest of my life with…"

"So you said, but unless you've realised you aren't actually gay after all…"

"Alicia," her dad sighs. "Just because I'm not sexually attracted to your mother…"

" _Definitely_ too much information there, Dad…"

"I'm sorry, darling, but you did ask. Look, your mam's right, it's about companionship. Your mam and I, we have something special. The rest of it doesn't matter. We've already agreed that we'll both…"

"Please, please don't finish that sentence," Alicia shudders. "I'm not interested in the… details, of your relationship, so please don't enlighten me. Do you remember what you were like after he decided he was going back to Martin the last time, Mam, you were ten times more distraught last time, and you're only setting yourself up for more heartbreak when he…"

"But that's the beauty of doing it this way, you see," her mam explains, clearly utterly deluded, desperate to believe it can happen if she wants it badly enough. "It's an open relationship, if you like, we're fully committed to each other romantically, it's just…"

Alicia rolls her eyes in despair, leans back against the wall, back aching. "I can't believe you're taking him back again, Mam, after last time- I'm sorry, but don't look at me like that, Dad, there's no excuse for how you've treated her. I just don't understand why you'd keep putting yourself through this, Mam, you can do so much better than…"

"Are you pregnant?" her mam demands suddenly, suspiciously, eyes fixed on her midsection.

All-too-late Alicia realises in the process of leaning back against the wall and pulling forward again, just spotted Louise entering back into cubicles and slightly paranoid she's going to make some sarcastic comment about leaning too close to the new equipment trays she managed to persuade the trust to fund, she's allowed the fabric of her hoodie to gather tightly around her bump.

It couldn't possibly be any more obvious.

"There's no point asking her that, Jackie, she'll only deny it!" Louise shouts across the room, hardly even looks up, avoids Alicia's furious glare as she frantically rearranges her hoodie, tries to cover it up.

She's probably been stirring, Alicia realises bitterly. She's clearly been involved in her mam's treatment, she's probably worked out that her parents don't yet know about her pregnancy and she's been waiting for this opportunity, just wants to stir and it's none of her business, she has absolutely no idea…

"What?" Jackie laughs, watches Alicia closely. "You mean… you mean she hasn't told you? Have you not noticed…"

"Oh, we've noticed. Like I said, she'll deny it. But I think you need to talk to Alicia about that," Louise tells her, waltzes off towards the door.

 _You need help_ , she mouths back over her shoulder, clearly fully aware that Alicia is going to be more than furious with her.

"Alicia?" her mam asks, strange expression on her face and her dad's that Alicia can't quite place, exactly what she's been dreading about this encounter all along. "Do you have something you want to tell us?"

"I…" Alicia stammers, mentally scans the room, takes in Dylan, Robyn, Jade and Gem a few cubicles down, Louise now with her next patient by the doorway, conscious that they must all be listening in by now along with half the patients. "I really don't have time to do this now, I need to get back to work in a minute…"

"It's a simple enough question. Are you pregnant?"

Both of her parents are watching her intently now, and it wasn't supposed to be like this, Alicia panics. She didn't have it all planned out as such, not exactly, but it wasn't supposed to go like this, she was going to sit down with them and go through it all properly, explain why she didn't tell them before, and she can't do that now, they're going to be so upset…

"Mam…"

"Don't look at me like that, Alicia, it's pretty obvious that's a pregnant belly you're trying to hide…"

"Then why are you bothering asking me, if you've already made up your mind!" Alicia protests, pinned into a corner, starting to panic. "I can't talk about this right now, I need to go…"

"Is this why you've been avoiding us for weeks?" her dad demands, face a picture of confusion. "Because you didn't want us to know you're pregnant? I don't understand…"

"No…" Alicia tries, realises this is going to get her nowhere, that they're never going to believe her. "I mean… yes… but…"

"So when were you planning on telling us?" her mam asks now, voice laced with hurt. "I mean, I'm assuming this is you telling us, I'm assuming you aren't going to deny it to us now. It's obvious, Alicia. I don't understand why you haven't told everyone here, it's obvious…"

"Oh, thanks, Mam, thanks for making me feel so much better." Alicia rolls her eyes, thoroughly unimpressed, shuffles awkwardly.

"I don't understand why you're being like this!" her mam exclaims. "You're pregnant, Alicia, it's supposed to be obvious, it's nothing to be embarrassed about…"

"Do we have to do this now?" Alicia pleads. "I need to get back to work…"

"Yes, we have to do this now!" her dad tells her, perhaps a little more authoritatively than he had intended, Alicia tells herself; she's going to give him the benefit of the doubt. "I know we've had our ups and downs, but why you wouldn't tell your mother… I just can't get my head around that."

"How far along are you?" her mam asks quietly, eyes beginning to water. "You must be at least five months, by the looks of things…"

"Please don't be like this…"

"Oh, you don't want us to be like this? It's a simple enough question, Alicia, and you still won't give us an answer, will you?"

"I didn't say that, I just don't want to do it here, we can…"

"Don't give me that rubbish, we know you're just trying to avoid it! Are you cutting us out?" her mam demands. "Is that it?"

"Jackie…" her dad warns.

"Oh, come on, Howard, I know you're thinking the same thing. Why wouldn't she tell us when she's this far along if she wanted us in her baby's life? Unless you don't want it?" her mam speculates. "No, Alicia, no, you don't get to give me that look and shut the whole thing down, I'm trying to make sense of this, since you clearly don't want to explain. Are you planning on aborting it, is that it? At this stage?"

"Of course I'm not…"

"Oh, so you doadmit it, then?"

"I don't want to talk about it now, can't we do this properly when I'm off shift?" Alicia tries. "I don't… I just…"

"Is this how you've been avoiding it in this place? You're making absolutely no sense, Alicia, this is ridiculous. I mean, you've successfully managed to avoid us and have us fooled you were just busy, but everyone in this place… for goodness sake, what did you expect them to think? That you've just had too many pies, or something, because believe me, weight gain doesn't show up like that unless it's pregnancy…"

"Will you stop…"

"Don't take that tone with your mam," her dad warns. "Don't you think she's upset enough already without you snapping at her? You're our only daughter, Alicia, our only daughter and you've apparently gone out of your way to avoid telling us we're having a grandchild, the only small consolation is you seem to be keeping it from everyone."

"It isn't like that…"

"Are you in denial?" her mam asks. "You read about this, don't you, women who for whatever reason don't want to accept they're pregnant, so they just deny the whole thing to themselves until they go into labour, only I think usually it isn't so physically obvious…"

"Mam…"

"It isn't Ethan's, is it?" her mam says suddenly. "That's why you're being so weird about it, that's why he left, it isn't Ethan's baby…"

Alicia shakes her head, trapped somewhere between angry and desperately upset. "You don't know what you're talking about…"

"And you expect me to believe that, Alicia? After the way you've been dodging around the whole thing, you really expect me to believe that? Have you even been to any antenatal appointments? It's not just about you, do you even understand that? Do you care?"

"Of course I care…"

"Well, you've got a funny way of showing it! I'd ask you to look me in the eye and tell me it's Ethan's baby, but you won't even admit to us you're pregnant, will you, so there's not exactly much point. Well? You won't, Alicia, will you, so don't look at me like that."

"You're upsetting her, Jackie…"

"I don't care!" her mam retorts. "I don't care, she clearly didn't about upsetting us, did she? Or Ethan, for that matter…"

"Don't go there, Mam," Alicia warns. "You have no idea what you're talking about, don't go there…"

"Oh, you think I don't? I know full well how it feels to be cheated on, Alicia, so I think I understand better than most- I'm sorry, Howard, but it's true, there's a reason we aren't making a go of our relationship like that again, isn't there…"

"That's hardly the point, Mam, he's gay, you aren't making a go of your relationship like that again because he's _gay_ …"

"Don't try and make this about us, Alicia, you're in no position to talk! Regardless… regardless of what your father did, this is… I don't even know what this is, but it's low! If it isn't Ethan's baby, Alicia, I swear to god…"

"It… it is…" Alicia stammers, closest to an admission she's come since this awful nightmare began and it feels so, so strange.

"I don't believe you," her mam tells her. "I don't believe her, do you, Howard? It's obvious she's hiding something."

"We just want the truth, Scooby," her dad says quietly. "I think this has gone beyond, now, all this time and we've been furious at Ethan, we thought he'd…"

"You don't understand…"

"Oh, so you don't know, then? You don't know if it's his baby or not, that's seriously classy, Alicia, I thought we raised you better than this…"

"You did…"

"Well, we clearly didn't! You can't hide it forever! What were you planning on doing, denying it until you give birth and then what? Get it adopted off and hope everyone will just go along with you and pretend like it never happened? Did you really expect them not to notice? You need to wake up, Alicia! You're only going to keep getting bigger, there's no use carrying on…"

"You would _not_ be saying that, Mam, if you knew…"

"I do know, Alicia! Everyone knows, you can tell just from looking at you, you're being completely ridiculous! Have you even thought about Ethan's feeling in all this? Because I've been beyond angry, if I'd seen him god only knows what I would have… and all along, it was you, I don't think I've ever been so ashamed of you, and like this, for god's sake, do you really think he deserves…"

"You've got it completely wrong… will you stop staring at me like that, Mam, that isn't helping!" Alicia protests, folds her arms around her bump, half self-conscious, half in response to the sudden tightening, uncomfortable, unexpected, definitely not the movement she's been desperately hoping for.

She can't deal with this. Not now, not all at once, she can't do it…

"Then explain!" her mam challenges. "If we've got it so wrong, then explain to us what this is really about. Because the way I see it, Ethan leaves and you won't tell us why, you avoid us for months and you've been trying to get everyone around you to play along with your denial act, or whatever this is, you're clearly pregnant, so if you've got nothing better to offer us then what are we supposed to think? Because we've been thinking the worst of Ethan, we really have, and the way you're behaving now, the only explanation I can see is it should have been Ethan we were supporting all this time, or trying to, we should have put you out in the cold before you could do it to us first…"

"Please don't be like this…"

"Are you pregnant with another man's baby? Yes or no? It's a simple enough question, Alicia…"

"I'm not doing this!" Alicia whispers, on the verge of tears and determined not to break down. "I'm not doing this, I just… no, I'm not, okay, but you've made it quite clear you don't believe me, so what's the point…"

"Alicia…" her dad tries. "Alicia, listen…"

"You can save it! Both of you, I don't want to hear it anymore, I… you've got it so, so wrong, you've got no idea, and I can't… you know what, just forget it," Alicia tells them, voice trembling, turns away. "Just forget it, I've got to get back to work…"

"Alicia…"

"I said forget it, Mam, I just want you to leave me alone!" Alicia snaps angrily. "Please, just leave me alone!" She turns, runs, out of cubicles and down the corridor, not entirely sure where she's going or what she's going to do next, just has to get out of there, can't do this, doesn't want them following her…

Too late, she notices Gem pushing an empty hospital trolley, collides into it, slams down onto the floor and everything hurts, her head's spinning and she can't, she can't…

Still nothing. She's fallen, and a hard fall, at that and still nothing, still no movement.

Nothing, shit, shit…

This has to be it, she's finally gone and been too negligent, this is it…

Alicia bursts into tears.

 **Thank you so much PanicPeachPit, lewisek18, 20blueroses, guest and Katie for your reviews, you all read into the argument scene at the end of the last chapter slightly differently which is exactly what I hoped would happen when I was writing it, and honestly the best feedback ever. One of the things that fascinates me about Alicia and Ethan is their communication dynamic, sometimes they just seem to get each other completely and other times they really, really don't, and it makes them all the more interesting to write arguments for! You are all awesome.**

 **As you may have guessed, Alicia's pregnancy reveal ended up being stupidly long so I've had to cut it in half, I promise the rest of it is coming! But this bit was all necessary to set the scene, promise. When I sat down to write this I realised Alicia was fast approaching breaking point and it only seemed right to hit it properly- I'm sorry! I hope I've got Alicia's parents relatively in character, it's always hard with characters who didn't get a lot of screen time.**

 **Reviews would be wonderful, I haven't finished writing the second half of this chapter yet, so any feedback you have is a massive help. And if you have a preference as to the next chapter, as always, feel free to let me know- depends which argument you want resolved first!**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter 36**

 **27 weeks**

"Do you want to look where you're going?" Gem snaps. "That was so not my fault…"

"Not helpful, Gem! Alicia? Alicia, are you alright? Can you sit up for me?" Suddenly Elle is next to her on the floor, arms around her shoulders.

"I can do it," Alicia protests wearily, fights back the tears. "I'm fine…"

Her left elbow buckles underneath her as she tries to push herself upright, and she hisses in pain, back here again and she's sick of it, she's so sick of it…

"Oh, alright. Alright, sweetie, let me help you. Can you all give her some space, please!" Elle shouts, and Alicia doesn't want to look up, doesn't want to know how many of her colleagues in the ED have gathered around to watch it all unfold. "Alicia," she says softly, leans in closer, one hand supporting her elbow, the other around her shoulders. "Alicia, I need you to be honest with me now. Are you in any other pain, besides this elbow? I really need you to tell me, it's important. I don't think you'd be this upset if it was just the tumble, would you?"

She doesn't want to do this. She doesn't want to do it, and she's avoided it for so long, but still there's nothing, nothing but the dull throbbing from the fall and even the uncomfortable twinges have gone and she's so scared, she can't do this…

"I… I haven't… felt her… move… all shift…" Alicia sobs, can hardly force out the words. "I should… have done… something… sooner… but… Bea's… busy and… since… since Eddie… I can't… examinations…"

"Okay. Okay, I need you to take some deep breaths for me, Alicia, this isn't going to help, is it? Hey? Breathe with me. That's it. Just breathe for me. David? David, do you think you could find me an empty side room, please? Quickly."

"I can't…"

"But we can't leave you on the floor like this, can we? Hey? And we need to do something with that elbow," Elle points out gently, reassuringly calm, just the faintest trace of surprise in her voice and Alicia tries to tell herself it's only because she thought she was never going to confront it head-on, allow anyone to acknowledge it all without kicking off spectacularly. "So we'll wait for David to find you a side room, and then we'll take it from there, okay? I'm not going to make you do anything you aren't comfortable with, sweetie. We can take it as slowly as you need to."

"My parents… are in… cubicles…"

"And you don't want to see them?"

Alicia shakes her head, everything spinning. "We… argued… about… _this_ …" She gestures awkwardly with her right hand, decides it's no good now, nothing left to hide, not really.

"Alright. Do you want to see if you can stand, then? I've got you. We'll start heading down, it shouldn't take David long to sort out a side room. You're not bleeding?"

"I don't… think…"

"Okay. Okay, sweetie, it's alright. Can you stand for me? That's it. We'll walk down slowly, okay, we can wait in Connie's office if David isn't ready for us just yet. There you go, you're alright. Or do you want me to get you a wheelchair?"

"I don't… want… everyone… looking…"

"Alright," Elle sighs. "Alright, hold onto me." Gently, slowly, she guides Alicia down the corridor, squeezes her shoulder. "She, then?" she murmurs.

Alicia nods, doesn't even know where to start, where she stands, dreads to even imagine how horribly frustrated Elle must be with her by now. "I'm sorry…"

"No, no, no, no, no, sweetie, you don't need to apologise. I'm just going to treat you," Elle promises. "I'm not going to ask you anything I don't need to know to treat you, alright? I'm not judging you…"

"I'd judge me…"

"Then you need to be kinder to yourself, don't you? Keep taking nice deep breaths for me, Alicia, you're alright."

"I… can't…"

"Yes, you can. You're doing brilliantly, I just need you to stay nice and calm for me. I can go and get Bea?" Elle suggests gently. "I'm assuming you've been more… open, with her…"

"Paeds is… mobbed, there's no way…"

"I think Bea's a bit busy," David interrupts apologetically. "But I've cleared a side room, just through here. I've told everyone I've closed it off to set thing up ready for the medical student simulation later, they won't ask too many questions."

"Thanks, David. She's gone over on her left elbow- is this the one you dislocated before?"

Alicia nods shakily, eyes closed. "It's not that bad…"

This isn't happening, this isn't happening…

"You're a terrible actress. David, can you get me some Entonox, aspirin and a sling, please. Alright, Alicia, come and sit here for me."

She's suddenly aware of Elle leading her gently over to the examination table, doesn't even remember how she got into the side room, can't seem to focus on anything, head spinning, nausea rising in her throat.

"I'm losing her, aren't I?" she whispers tearfully, good hand probing frantically for movement, game well and truly up.

She hadn't realised quite how broken she felt until she can hear it in her own voice, and as it sinks in it only makes her cry harder.

"We don't know that," Elle reminds her gently. "I need you to relax, Alicia, you're not helping yourself, are you? Lie back for me properly, sweetie. That's it. How far along are you?" she asks gently, holds out the tissues. "Alicia?"

"I thought the entire hospital already knew…"

"I'm not asking the ED rumour mill," Elle tells her. "I'm asking you. Look, if I've upset you, I'm so sorry, I've only been trying to…"

"I know. I know, you don't have to apologise. I know I've… well, I've been a moody cow." Alicia wipes at her eyes furiously, desperately trying not to cry but somehow, she just can't stop. "I know I must be a total nightmare to work with at the moment, I'm the one who should be sorry. Twenty-seven," she whispers at last, eyes the door shiftily, just in case. "I'm twenty-seven weeks. This is… this is the longest she's been this still since… since she started moving…"

"It's not all that unusual," Elle tries to reassure her. "It could be absolutely nothing, there's no point getting yourself all worked up like this. I'm going to…"

"It could be…"

"Hey, there's no point thinking like that. Can you try to straighten that elbow for me? Oh, okay. Okay, definitely dislocated."

"I haven't managed to get it completely straight since I went down the stairs…"

"Alicia," Elle sighs. "Then we need to get you back into physio, don't we?"

"I know, I know, but it's… it's been manageable, and I've had… other things… on my mind…"

"Alright. Alright, I'm going to reduce your elbow once David gets back, and then shall I check you over?" Elle suggests carefully. "Or I can… you've been seeing a midwife, right?"

"I'm not completely irresponsible…"

"Okay, I'm sorry. I know, sweetie, I know it hurts, I'm going to reduce it for you as soon as David gets back with some pain relief. Do you want me to see if I can get your midwife down from obstetrics? Would that be easier for you?"

"That would make it ten times worse," Alicia protests anxiously. "We don't really get on."

"But she's been taking your appointments, presumably, is that better than me…"

"Bea's been doing the actual examinations," she admits. "And even then, it's a struggle. I… I know it's ridiculous, I just… I can't…"

"No, it's not ridiculous, sweetie. It's not ridiculous, it's very common in rape victims, it's absolutely nothing to be ashamed of…"

"It was nearly two years ago, Elle…"

"And that's hardly any time at all, really, with something like that," Elle reminds her gently. "Plenty of women find pregnancy difficult after rape…"

"I never said I was finding it difficult…"

"Oh Alicia, it's been written all over your face for weeks," Elle sighs, massages her wrist gently, still supporting her left arm.

"I thought... I mean," Alicia shakes her head. "If it was… right after rape, that makes sense, but this… I just need to pull myself together, and I _can't_ …"

"You're far too hard on yourself, you know that? Yes, even pregnancy years after rape. It's not all that uncommon for women to avoid antenatal appointments altogether. You've got absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, sweetie. Nothing."

"I just… I just can't cope with anyone touching me, but… like… this is fine, probably because I know you, I don't know… hugging and stuff's fine, I just don't understand why I can't deal with…"

"Because you're feeling vulnerable, and that's completely understandable. Will you let me try?" Elle asks softly. "I'm not going to hurt you, I'm not going to do anything you aren't comfortable with. But we need to make sure you and the baby are alright, don't we?"

"I'm scared she's… that she's already…"

"You've got no reason to think that. But if there is something wrong, we need to know now."

 _His hands are all over her. She's told him no and he just won't listen, he's pushing back the covers and she's frozen, needs to react, needs to do something, anything, to get him away from her but she can't move, can't scream, panic rising within her as it becomes painfully, horrifyingly clear what he's about to do and she can't stop him, she can't stop him…_

She has to snap out of it, Alicia realises. She has to snap out of it, her baby needs her to snap out of it, if she can't pull herself together there could be something horribly wrong and she might not know until it's far too late…

"Okay," Alicia whispers shakily, jumps, startled, as the door swings open, curses herself when she realises it's only David. "Okay."

Elle nods, squeezes her hand. "It'll be fine, I promise. We can take it as slowly as you need to. Thanks, David," she smiles gratefully. "I need you to assist me, please, her elbow's definitely dislocated."

It's all something of a blur after that. Perhaps it's because she knows what's coming, has been through all of this too many times over the last eighteen months, enough to know that the pain she's in now is nothing compared to the pain she's going to be in post-reduction, zones out as a means of self-preservation of sorts. One moment everything is a haze of pain and panic and exhaustion and upset, and the next she's startled back to reality, in complete and utter agony, gas and air mask over her face and she can't remember how it got there, David's hand on her shoulder, gentle, steadying her, her left arm in Elle's grip and horrible, crippling pain.

"There we go. There we go, sweetie, it's over. You're alright. You're alright, take some nice, deep breaths for me. Has that done it? Okay. You know the drill then, don't you, by now, you need to keep it immobilised for at least two weeks, this time, I'll do your physio referral once we're finished here, and I'll talk to Mrs Beauchamp- don't look at me like that, Alicia, that's final, I mean it. You're far too brilliant to have your career ruined by an elbow injury you didn't let heal properly. A couple of weeks off will do you the world of good, anyway. David," Elle says quietly. "David, do you think you could find me a foetal Doppler, please? Discretely, if you can. If anyone sees you, tell them anything. Just preferably not that you're bringing it in here."

David nods, meets Alicia's eyes for a moment, and she can't quite place what she sees there- sympathy? Worry?

"Alright. Alright, I'll be right back."

"Thanks, David. Relax for me, Alicia, I need you to relax. Breathe, sweetie. I know, I know it's hard, it won't be much longer. Okay? You're doing really well."

"I can't lose her, Elle," Alicia whispers tearfully. "I can't, she's… she's all I've got left of… of Ethan, I can't… he's not coming back now, I know he's not, and I _can't_ …"

"I know. I know, and I'm going to do everything I can," Elle promises. "We'll wait for David to come back, then I'll shut the door and I'll examine you, alright?"

"Thank you." It feels as though the world is ending, as though she can't possibly focus on anything, can't take anything in at all unless it's the news she desperately needs to hear, but somehow, she understands what Elle is trying to tell her between the lines, that she knows how difficult this is going to be for all sorts of reasons, that she's trying to minimise Alicia's distress as far as she possibly can.

"It's alright. Are you sure you don't want me to see if your parents are still here?"

"No. No, they… they're beyond angry, they… they…" Screw it, Alicia decides, screw it, there's no point hiding any of it, not now, no point even trying. "I haven't told them… well, I suppose I have now, really, I don't know… but they didn't… they didn't know, they didn't take it well, they think… they think…" she shakes her head, dissolves into tears again, can't seem to hold herself together for more than a few minutes at a time.

"What do they think? Alicia?" Elle sits down on the chair next to the hospital bed, squeezes Alicia's good hand tightly.

"They think… I haven't… told… them… because… it's… not… Ethan's…"

"And is it?" Elle asks softly.

"I couldn't ever… do that to him… never… but… especially after… Eddie…"

"Oh, Alicia, come here. It's alright. It's alright, sweetie, I need you to keep taking nice deep breaths for me," Elle reminds her gently, pulls her into a hug.

"It just… all got so… heated… they were just… upset… and… I couldn't…"

"And then it got a bit out of hand? Okay. Okay, darling, I understand."

"I know… I… need… to… just…"

The door opens again, and then there's a flurry of movement, David handing over the foetal Doppler.

"You don't need to do anything, Alicia. Alright? You don't need to do anything except try to relax now, you're still far too tense, you're only going to make it all seem much worse than it is if you're like this when I examine you, aren't you? Thanks, David, I'll handle it from here." Elle pauses, waits until the door is safely closed again. "You okay?" she tries gently. "Alicia?"

Alicia shakes her head, closes her eyes, increasingly panicked and no idea how to cope with it. "Just do it. Just do it, please…"

"Okay. Okay, but if you need me to stop at any point, you only need to tell me. I'm not going to do anything you don't want me to, I promise. You're safe. Can you lift your top for me, sweetie?"

Alicia grimaces, closes her eyes tightly, obliges. "I look bloody massive…"

"No, you don't, don't be so silly."

"I don't know if I want to know, Elle," Alicia sobs. "I just…"

"I know. I know, but this part's nearly over. Just stay still…"

"I had a cigarette this morning, I know I shouldn't have but I was stressed, you don't think…"

"No, I don't," Elle tells her gently, but Alicia can't believe she's being honest with her, not really. "One isn't going to do her any real damage…"

"It isn't the first time though, I… I've probably had one every week or so, maybe less, I know I'm awful but it's a stress thing and I was smoking more than that before twelve weeks but I didn't know then, I wouldn't have if I'd known…"

"Alicia. Alicia, this isn't helping, is it? I'm going to…"

"She's at risk of cardiac complications already and I keep cutting off her oxygen, I'm such…"

"Okay. Okay, it's alright, sweetie, you're alright. I'm going to try to find her heartbeat, and we'll take it from there, there's no point doing this to yourself now, is there? You're okay with me touching you?"

"No, but I want you to do it anyway."

"Well, I suppose that counts as consent." There's a gentle pressure against her abdomen, and she tries to breathe slowly but she just can't, heart racing, completely and utterly terrified and she can't cope with it all ending here, she can't do it, she just can't, not like this…

She doesn't know what she'd do without her at this stage, and perhaps that's ridiculous, given she isn't even born yet. But it feels as though this baby is the only thing worth struggling on for at the moment, all she has left, and she can't face losing her now, she can't do it, not on top of everything else, on top of Ethan…

There's a few moments of silence, horrible silence, and then a loud, frantic thudding, unmistakable, and Alicia can't hold it in anymore, only cries harder, relief flooding through her like nothing she's ever known.

She's alright. She hasn't done her irreversible damage after all, she's alright…

"Hey, it's okay. I know, I know, Alicia. That's a nice strong heartbeat, your baby's absolutely fine. You still haven't felt anything?"

Alicia shakes her head, reaches for the tissues.

"Then I want you to stay in here and rest for a while then, please, just until you do. I think you've overdone it a bit, but there's no reason to think there's anything wrong, okay? Her heartrate's perfectly fine. And then you're going straight home, I'll drive you myself if I have to, and I don't want you back in here for at least a couple of weeks. I'll tell Connie, you need to let that arm heal. But I still want to examine you properly, sweetie, is that alright? You haven't had any discharge?"

"Only the usual shitty stuff no one warns you about until you get pregnant and it's too late. But I can't do virginal, Elle, I _can't,_ everything else is bad enough…"

"Hey, it's okay. Alright. Alright. I'll do an abdominal palpation and we'll take it from there, are you happy with that? You're doing really well, sweetie. You're doing really, really well, I'm going to leave you in peace as soon as I'm satisfied you're both okay."

"I'm not though," Alicia whispers. "I'm not, she needs me to be able to do this and I keep being ridiculous about it…"

"Alicia, you're not being ridiculous. You're being so far from ridiculous, it's perfectly understandable."

"I know you aren't going to… to… to do what he did, it just isn't that simple…"

"I know. I know, Alicia, you don't have to explain. It's perfectly normal, I understand. I'm only going to palpate, I'm not going to do anything else if you're sure you're not bleeding. I'm not going to hurt you. And the moment you start feeling uncomfortable, you just tell me and I'll stop. Okay? You're fine, it's all going to be fine. I'd offer to go and find Bea and swap with her, but it sounds like she's…"

Alicia shakes her head. "I need to get over it. I know I need to get over it…"

"I think you need to stop being so hard on yourself, actually. You've had an awful lot to cope with over the last couple of years, Alicia, let alone recently, it's no wonder you're struggling a bit."

"Okay. Okay, I… I get like this every time, even with Bea, I'm sorry…"

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Alicia. Absolutely nothing. Are you going to move your hands for me then, sweetie? And then we can get it over with."

Only then, still overwhelmed with relief but fast losing control to the fear and the bad memories and the tension and everything else she can't quite define again, does she realise that at some point since the Doppler was discarded she's wrapped her hands around her bump protectively, shut down, firmly communicating that she has no desire to let anyone touch her any further.

She wants Ethan. She just wants Ethan, and perhaps it would have all been just as bad even if he were here, but at least she wouldn't have been going through it all by herself, perhaps it wouldn't have all felt quite so horribly overwhelming…

"Sorry…"

"I've told you, haven't I, you don't need to apologise. I'm going to be really quick, I just want to check you haven't…"

Alicia winces, closes her eyes, knows exactly where she's going with this. "It's going to look worse than it actually is, oligohydramnios…"

"Okay. Okay, well that certainly explains why you managed to cover it up as long as you did," Elle sighs.

"You haven't believed me for months, I know you haven't…"

"No, but I think most of us are still kicking ourselves we didn't realise something was wrong sooner," she admits quietly. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I… I realise now, perhaps we haven't been helping, we've just been worried about you, we thought if you could get it all out in the open…"

"I just wanted to deal with it my way, I just couldn't…" Alicia shakes her head, eyes still tightly closed in anticipation. "You wouldn't understand…"

"I can try?" Elle offers gently. "Is this why Ethan left?" she tries carefully. "Did Ethan leave when you told him…?"

"It wasn't like that. I know that must be how it looks, but it really wasn't like that, honestly. It wasn't. He… it's not fair, I can't… it's not fair on Ethan…"

"And you think he worried about what was fair on you? He must have walked out on you when you were, what…"

"Sixteen weeks," Alicia sighs. "Sixteen weeks, and I really, really don't want to talk about Ethan," she says firmly. "She should be moving though, I don't understand why she isn't…"

"Because it happens," Elle reminds her simply. "Sometimes it happens, and I wish I could tell you why, but I can't. You know that. But there's absolutely no reason to think there's anything wrong, her heartrate's fine, it could just be…"

"She's…" Alicia shakes her head, can't remember if she's ever had to say it out loud before or if she's relied on Bea up until now, with the handful of people she's actually told. "She's got… exomphalos… they keep telling me minor, but it's borderline…"

"Oh, Alicia… I'm so sorry." Elle pauses, visibly horrified, holds Alicia's hand tightly in hers. "And we've… I'm so sorry, we've all been piling pressure on you to… if I'd known…"

"No, it's… it's alright. I know I haven't exactly been easy to be around, I know it's obvious, I know I should have… I just wanted to… I don't know, I couldn't get my head around it, I…"

"Is this why you haven't wanted to tell anyone?" Elle asks quietly. "Alicia? We could have helped, sweetie, we could have supported you…"

She almost protests. She almost protests to Elle that she's got it all wrong, that she doesn't know what she's talking about and jumping to all the wrong conclusions.

Then she realises that if she just plays along and doesn't bother correcting her, it offers her a way out, an explanation, gets them all off her back, and suddenly Elle's assumption doesn't seem like such a bad thing.

"I just… we didn't want to say anything at first, Ethan and I… they… confirmed it, a few weeks ago, that it was minor, and I know it could be a lot worse, I know the odds are relatively good as far as major neonatal surgery goes but it just… it freaked me out, and then I knew I needed to tell everyone and make it official and everything but it's just… all… messed with my head a bit…"

"Oh, Alicia," Elle sighs, holds out the tissues, squeezes her shoulder gently. "Oh, Alicia, I'm so sorry. I wish you'd felt you could tell me…:

"It wasn't personal," Alicia insists, half-panicked she's gone too far, upset her, pushed her away completely just as she's made herself so vulnerable and exposed. "It really wasn't, I just… I just didn't want to tell anyone, Bea and Ruby only knew because I really couldn't hide it from them- or deny it, really, I know I haven't exactly been able to hide for weeks now, but it really wasn't personal, Bea and Ruby were just there when I found out and then… after Ethan, I just…"

I'm glad you did. I'm glad you did tell them, you don't have to apologise. You need some support. God knows you aren't getting it from Ethan…"

"I don't want to talk about him," Alicia protests. "He was… before he left, he really was, but I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay," Elle sighs softly. "Okay. But you know I'm here, don't you, if you change your mind? It's a lot, Alicia. Pregnancy's a lot to get your head around at the best of times, let alone after your boyfriend…"

"Not helping, Elle." Alicia blinks wearily, part of her desperate to keep delaying the inevitable and part of her just wanting to get it over with. "That really isn't helping… look, I appreciate it, and everything, but I don't want to talk about it…"

"I understand. As long as you're getting support from Bea and Ruby. If you don't want to talk to me about it, I understand, I'm not going to push it, but you need to talk to someone. I know it's hard, but you need to try not to panic too much. The stats are fantastic nowadays, for exomphalos…"

"And it's easy to think of it like that when it's a patient, but when it's your own baby…"

"You can't help but focus on the complications," Elle finishes for her. "I know. But the mortality rate must be…"

"Ten percent, in isolation. But I can't… any associated complications and it could… she could… I can't even think about that. I can't… she's all I've got left, Elle, I can't lose her…"

"I don't think it's going to come to that," Elle tells her gently. "I really don't think it's going to come to that, but I can do an ultrasound, if that would put your mind at rest? But her heartrate's perfect, Alicia. There's absolutely nothing to worry about based on her heartrate. Shall we get this part over with, then?"

Alicia nods weakly, moves her hands, winces awkwardly at the pain shooting up her arm. "Just… if I start protesting, ignore me, stopping and starting again is so much worse. But I can tell you now, my fluid levels are going to be ridiculous, they always are, there's no point…"

"And I'll feel much better once I'm sure your waters haven't broken…"

"I'd know if they had…"

"You wouldn't be the first woman to miss it."

"I don't know why… it's not even like… I don't know why I can't just…"

"Hey, we've already been through that, haven't we? It's normal, Alicia. You don't have to apologise, you don't have to justify yourself, it's normal. It's not your fault, you didn't cause this. Eddie did that."

"But I'm the one who's letting it control me like this…"

"I don't think you're letting it control you. I think you're doing a pretty good job of not letting it control you, actually, you're just struggling a bit. And who can blame you? You're doing fine. I'm just going to measure your fundal height, sweetie, I need to…"

"I know. I know, just do it." She closes her eyes, tries to block it all out, remove the association with that night she always seems to come back to when it comes to any kind of examination now but it's not that easy, she doesn't want anyone to touch her, just in case, and rationally she knows it isn't going to happen again, not now, not like this, but it just isn't that easy…

"Alicia? Alicia, are you still with me? I don't think your waters have broken, I'm going to request your notes from Obstetrics, unless you can remember…"

"Is it over?"

"Yes, it's over. I'm going to request your notes, if you're sure you don't want to go up to Obstetrics, but I don't think you're measuring abnormally small, if your midwife's already identified oligohydramnios. But I think it's best we keep you in and monitor you for a couple of hours, all things considered. I'll get onto Physiotherapy for you, while you're still here, would you be happier with the same physio as last time? Okay. And that piercing needs to come out."

"It's fine…"

"And it won't be if you leave it in much longer."

"You're not my mam."

"Nope, but I'm old enough to be, just about, and I care about you, so humour me, please. Did your midwife not tell you to…?"

Alicia groans, closes her eyes in protest, disengaged. "You'd have to ask Bea. Probably, but I don't tend to take much notice of her unless it's actually important, we don't really get on…"

"Alicia… All of it's important, it's not just about the obstetrics side, it's about supporting you as well, which you clearly need- I'm not having a go at you, sweetie, I'm really not. But you really need to be looking after yourself better than I think you are right now, and you know that, don't you? But please, take that out, it looks infected. Have you not noticed…"

"No, I haven't, I try not to if I can avoid it because it turns out ignoring a pregnancy for five months just messes with your head so much it's actually ridiculous and it's much easier to just try to pretend I'm not the size of a…" Alicia pauses, suddenly aware that perhaps she's said too much. "I know, I know, I… I'm dealing with it. I really don't want to talk about it, but Bea and Ruby know, it's under control, it's fine…"

"Alicia…"

"There's no point going through it all now," Alicia argues wearily. "There really isn't, I… I've been having counselling, it's got a lot better, in the last couple of weeks, I just want to get on with it…"

"Okay," Elle sighs, her voice laced with considerable reluctance. "Okay, is Ruby working today?"

Alicia shakes her head, knows exactly where this is going.

"Then I'm calling Ruby, and she's coming to get you, you're not going home by yourself. Have you had a break yet?"

Alicia nods. "Bea's only stuck in Paeds because she was covering for me while I went to see my Mam and Dad…"

"And that's obviously upset you, so it doesn't count. Have you had an actual break? An actual, more than two seconds to yourself, cup of tea and no one asking you to do anything urgently and someone else in charge of the Paeds crash bleep kind of break?"

"It's only me in Paeds apart from the F1s," Alicia protests, presses the back of her hand against her forehead. "I've been chasing Paediatrics to send a consultant down all day and they're still trying to sort something, apparently, and we all know how understaffed the ED is since… since… you know what I mean. But I can't leave the F1s on their own without a consultant, and you and Dylan can't exactly babysit them with Mrs Beauchamp on leave. How am I supposed to…?"

"Connie's been making sure you get your breaks, hasn't she?" Elle realises. "Okay. Okay, we… I'm guessing this has been you telling me, yes?"

Alicia nods, flushes, embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I know I've been…"

"How many times, you don't need to apologise. I'm the one who needs to be apologising to you, I think we've been going about it all wrong, haven't we? But listen, you've told me now, so I can help, right? Do you think you can live with that? If I just drop down here every couple of hours and make sure you can get out for a few minutes, would that help?"

"I don't want special treatment, I keep telling Mrs Beauchamp that."

"It's not special treatment, I'd do exactly the same for anyone else at this stage," Elle sighs. "You know I would. You look exhausted, Alicia. You look exhausted, you look like you've lost an awful lot of weight, I'm not convinced you're looking after yourself at the best of times, adding twelve hour shifts without proper breaks into the mix at six months pregnant is just a recipe for disaster. So we need to make sure you're getting regular breaks, even when Connie isn't in, and if I have to drag you out of Paeds myself, I will. I remember when I was pregnant, by about halfway through my shifts my ankles used to…"

"Oh my god, don't, I think mine are about five times their normal size already and I'm only, what, halfway through this shift."

"Right, and you weren't going to tell me that, then?" Elle sighs. "You need to disclose these things, Alicia, it could be…"

"I know it isn't preeclampsia, it's fine…"

"And I'd really rather you didn't rely on self-diagnosis, so I'm going to need a urine sample before you leave here, please. I'll get onto Paediatrics, they need to send us down a consultant, it's getting ridiculous now."

"I don't think they've got a spare consultant, that's just it," Alicia confesses. "I mean, it's frustrating, yes, but I don't think they're in a much better position than us at the moment. And I can cope, apart from when…"

"Oh, don't give me that, Alicia, you can't. You can struggle through, maybe, but that isn't coping, that's just… I don't know, damage control. You can't carry on like this. Paeds are just going to have to accept that until we take on another consultant, they need to help us cover the Paeds ED. Why we're still relying on locums, I really don't know…"

"I think… Mrs Beauchamp's been trying to keep Ethan's job open," Alicia explains awkwardly, almost guiltily, because surely if her suspicions are correct, it's her fault, all her fault that they're so understaffed; if Mrs Beauchamp is still holding out for Ethan to change his mind then it's only because she's witnessed her complete and utter breakdown since he went away. "Not that there's any point now, he's made it quite clear he isn't coming back…" She shakes her head, falls silent, torn between desperately wanting to talk about it all at last and a deep-rooted sense of loyalty inside her, can't quite bring herself to betray his confidence, because she promised, promised she wouldn't tell anyone at work and that's exactly what she's going to do, whether he's coming back or not.

"Do you know where he is?" Elle asks carefully, sympathetic. "Alicia?"

"No. No, I don't, and he's…" She shudders, and for a moment she's back at the top of the stairs, falling, everything hazy after that but if she really concentrates she can just about see Ethan's expression, hazy, blurred, but there, the last time she saw him and then he was gone, she was in resus and it was all-too-late…

"There's no point," Alicia says quietly at last, determined not to cry again. "He's not coming back, he doesn't want me to contact him, there's no point talking about it, we all just need to accept he doesn't want to come back and…" she shakes her head. "Mrs Beauchamp's wasting her time if she's holding out on making a permanent appointment on the off-chance. He isn't coming back. I know he isn't. I've just got to accept that I'm doing it all without him, there's no point pretending he's going to change his mind."

"You don't need him, sweetie. If that's how he's going to be, you don't need him anyway. You're going to be an amazing mum, you're going to be perfectly fine without him. You've got us. I'm always here if you want to talk, okay? You know, to someone who's been there, done single motherhood. You're going to be brilliant. Are you going to be alright if I leave you for a couple of minutes and phone Ruby?"

"As long as you don't announce it to the whole ED."

"It's just between us," Elle assures her. "I won't be long. Don't move, don't try and discharge yourself, don't do anything, you're not going home by yourself."

"Elle?" Alicia calls, catches her just as she turns towards the doorway. "Thank you. For… you know. I know I've been completely ridiculous about…"

"It's alright. You don't have to apologise, Alicia, it's alright. I understand. I'll be right back."

It's only after the door is closed again and she's left alone in silence, stillness, mind finally at peace, that she feels it; gentle fluttering within her, momentary, fleeting, but just enough to put her mind at rest.

"Are you sure about this?" Ruby asks her gently, pulls into the pub car park several hours later. "We don't have to do this tonight, if you don't want to. We can…"

"No. No, I'm sure," Alicia tells her, though anxiety is already building within her as she glances out of the window in the direction of the Hope and Anchor. "I need to do it, I just want to get it over with. Bea's managed to gather everyone together in the pub, I can't back out now…"

"You could," Ruby reminds her. "You've had an awful day, Bea would understand."

"I know. But I… I can't leave it hanging over me forever, can I, I just need to do it," Alicia decides, takes one final deep breath before opening the passenger door awkwardly, still adjusting to being one-handed again. "I just need to get it over with…"

Ruby nods, quiet, pensive. "Okay. But we don't have to stay for long," she promises. "We can just stay for one drink, or something, any time you want to leave, just say. I don't think anyone's going to blame you, after today."

"Oh, don't," Alicia sighs. "It's getting ridiculous, now, I mean, the first time, it was a fairly predictable injury really, wasn't it, going through a window and all that. And the second time. But I only went over in the corridor this time, for god's sake, it's… I know, I know, I should have stuck with the physio longer last time," she agrees, knows from Ruby's expression exactly what she's going to say. "I just had other things on my mind then, it wasn't exactly my top priority, obviously I regret that now…"

"I know." Ruby smiles sympathetically, leads Alicia around to the entrance, holds the door open. "I know, but you're going to see it through this time, even if Bea and I have to physically drag you there. And don't even think about taking that off," she warns, somehow manages to spot Alicia fumbling awkwardly with her sling even as her back is momentarily turned. "If you want it to heal properly this time, that's a terrible idea. And I know what you're going to say, but you're telling them now, remember? It doesn't matter how obvious it is or isn't with a sling, because you're telling them, you don't have to worry about hiding it anymore. Come on." She smiles, quietly reassuring. "You'll feel better once you've got it over with."

She's stupidly, ridiculously nervous, that short walk across the pub with Ruby to the table her colleagues are occupying in the corner, absorbed in each other's company, perfectly happy without her, and it's been so long since Alicia has ventured into the pub after work what with everything that's changed over the last few months that she almost bottles out, turns around and bolts and drags Ruby with her, can't go through with it.

It feels like a lifetime ago, that she was last in here. It would have been right before the last round of her ED registrar exams, right before she told Ethan, she would have been in here with him, one of them would have stayed off the alcohol, driven home- back to hers, because hers had practically become his home by that point. They would have gone via a local takeaway place, most likely, late by the time they left the pub and due back in work early the next morning, argued lightly over where to go, she would have turned her nose up at his suggestions on the grounds of lack of vegan options and he would have rejected chana masala, made some sort of dig about chickpeas tasting like cardboard, they would have curled up on the sofa in front of a bad film and he would have tested her on her revision notes, told her she didn't need last minute panic cramming, they would have…

He's never coming back, and she doesn't know how to deal with it. She's going to have to do the rest of it all by herself, pregnancy hell, the delivery part, parenthood, paeds rotation she'd talked through with Ethan after the complete and utter disaster that was moving to Manchester by herself and too much pressure all-too soon after Eddie, consultancy exams in a few years, the rest of her career, the rest of her life, she's going to have to do it all by herself…

"Hey, I was starting to think you weren't coming," Bea greets them, gestures to the two empty chairs beside her, climbs to her feet, pulls Alicia into a hug. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," Alicia assures her quickly, can feel everyone else around the table watching her carefully and she just wants to get this part over with as soon as possible, not entirely sure when she developed this complete and utter hatred of being the centre of attention but she knows it's only going to get worse once she makes the announcement, and she can't do this and then go straight into it, she's going to be practically shuddering by the time she manages to escape. "I'm fine, it was just a stupid accident, really, I slipped…"

"But you're sure everything else is fine?" Bea murmurs, extends the hug just a moment longer to ensure no one else can hear, waits until Alicia has nodded slightly before she pulls away. "Okay. If you're sure. I'll go and order you both a drink, usual, yeah? I'll be right back."

"Are you sure you're alright?" Gem asks, expression rather guilty. "I'm really sorry about earlier, I shouldn't have snapped at you, you just took me by…"

"It's okay. Honestly, don't worry about it, it's fine," Alicia covers quickly, no desire to go through it all again. "It's my own fault, anyway, you were right, I should have been more careful, and you didn't… this elbow was messed up anyway, it wasn't your fault."

"Are you missing us already?" Robyn teases. "If I was signed off injured, there's no way you'd catch me anywhere near this place."

"Something like that. Actually, I…"

She's suddenly aware of everyone's eyes fixed on her, watching intently, pressurised and irrationally anxious and all the words she planned before have left her, no idea where to start, what to say…

Silently, carefully, Alicia reaches into her handbag, rummages for her purse, places her latest ultrasound photo on the table in front of them all.

"Oh my goodness, Alicia, she's gorgeous," Elle exclaims, shoots Alicia a knowing smile as she picks up the scan photo.

"She?" Louise asks suspiciously, sat beside Elle, eyebrows raised. "Did you already…"

"Oh come on, Lou, have you never sat in on an ultrasound before? Perfect angle, she's obviously a girl," Elle covers. "She's got your nose."

"Poor child," Bea teases. "Hey, I'm joking, you know I am. She's beautiful."

"How far along are you?" Robyn asks, taking the scan photo from Elle.

"Twenty-seven weeks," Alicia tells her voice a little shaky and she doesn't quite know why. "But she's a bit on the small side…"

"She looks perfect to me. Ahh, this is so exciting! If you need any baby things, just shout, I'm pretty sure I've still got all Charlotte's stuff in the attic. And if you want to meet for coffee, once you're on maternity leave, if you ever want to talk about… you know. I know all about doing it by yourself."

"Thanks, Robyn," Alicia smiles gratefully. "I… that'd be great, thank you."

Dylan frowns disapprovingly, next to have Alicia's scan passed to him. "Are we really going to all just pretend…"

"Yes, yes, we are," Elle interrupts, forced lightness in her tone and yet absolutely, uncompromisingly firm beneath it all.

"Is it Ethan's?" Rash asks now, visibly recoils as Gem kicks him under the table sharply. "Sorry. Sorry, I shouldn't have…"

"No, it's alright. Yes… Ethan's the father. But he's… he's not going to be involved… not because he didn't want… it's complicated, he knew, and everything, that isn't why he…"

"You don't have to explain," Bea tells her firmly. "You don't have to explain any of it, everyone understands."

"Are you sure there aren't two of them?" Rash questions, evidently an attempt at a joke and not even remotely amusing, doesn't seem to realise his error until it's too late, then suddenly seems to remember that Alicia is still his mentor, does the maths in his head, works out his next portfolio assessment is going to fall perfectly between her coming back into work post latest elbow injury and going on maternity leave, that offending her now is a truly terrible career move. "I mean… not that I think you look… you don't… it just looks like there's a shadow on the scan, I was joking…"

"She's…" Alicia stammers, decides to hell with it, she might as well get it all over with now. "She's got exomphalos… obstetrics think minor, but she's borderline, there's no way of knowing until she's born."

Rash's face is a picture of utter horror.

 **I am so, so sorry for the delay! I've had a particularly difficult couple of weeks with personal stuff and have just been writing in slow motion when I've had time to myself, I promise I will try not to leave it so long next time!**

 **This chapter in particular was written with Flora in mind, if you know the Max Pemberton Junior Doctor series. I think I've read every medical memoir in existence as research for this story, and I'd already started the past chapters of this story when I read Max Pemberton's third book, in which his junior doctor flatmate, Flora, finds herself pregnant, alone, and just left to get on with it when it comes to work, and medicine is obviously a hugely demanding job at the best of times.**

 **Thank you as always to PanicPeachPit, Katie, 20BlueRoses and Guest for taking the time to review the last chapter, your feedback is always wonderful to receive. I always worry dialogue isn't my forte, so it's honestly really lovely to hear that you enjoy the dialogue scenes. To my guest reviewer- I know exactly what you mean with Louise, I've always felt that she either gets it completely, wonderfully right when she wades into other people's business unwanted or totally, disastrously wrong, but most of the time she gets it wrong and it puts me off her character a little. I'm sorry, Louise fans!**

 **Reviews would be wonderful, please do let me know I haven't lost you all! And I promise you will get lots of Ethan in the next chapter.**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	37. Chapter 37

**Chapter 37**

"Mammy? Mammy?"

Alicia groans, pulled abruptly from sleep, blinks, struggles to focus in the darkness. Her eyelids feel swollen, heavy, and she's so half asleep at first that it takes her a moment to remember that after that awful phone call with Ethan, she cried herself to sleep.

She's reluctant to fully wake up at first, exhausted, and then she registers the sobbing, the obvious distress, and then maternal instinct kicks in and she's wide awake, can't not react, not when her baby girl is so obviously upset.

"Oh, it's okay. It's okay, Chakka, come here." Instinctively, she shuffles over, kicks back the covers and holds out her arms, waits for Chakra to curl up beside her, reaches out to brush her thumb gently against her cheek, wet, tear stained. "Hey, hey, don't cry. Don't cry, it's okay. You're okay, sweetheart. Do you want to tell me what's wrong?"

Chakra shakes her head, hiccups, still on the brink of a sobbing meltdown.

"No? No, alright. Come here, then. I love you so much." Alicia hugs her tightly, wraps the duvet around her, still a little paranoid almost a week on. "Have you been sick?"

"No, but I thought I was going to be."

"Okay. Okay, so, bad dream? No? You upset about something? Or are you just feeling sad?"

Chakra falls silent for a moment, wriggles, clings onto Alicia as though afraid she's going to walk away and leave her to it.

"Just sad," she says at last.

"Well, that's no good, is it? Have you been awake for a while? Yeah? I think you'd feel better if you went back to sleep, don't you? I think you're just overtired, that's all, it won't seem so bad in the morning. Do you want to stay with me?"

"Please?"

There's something about the way she says it, quiet, shaky, clingy, that almost seems to suggest she thinks there's a chance her mother will say no.

Alicia doesn't know what to do with her when she's like this.

Is it her fault? Is her daughter being like this because she hasn't made it clear enough to her that she loves her? Or has she done something else, has she been getting something catastrophically wrong ever since she was born and that's what's caused all this, has she damaged her…

"Of course you can. When have I ever made you go back to your own bed when you're upset, hey? You can stay here if you want to."

"You don't mind?"

"When have I ever minded? Of course I don't mind, you're obviously upset, you can sleep in here if you want. And anyway, you give the best hugs ever, don't you, darling? And you aren't going to want hugs with your mam when you're a teenager, are you, so I'm going to have to make the most of it."

"I will."

"You will? You're sweet, aren't you? I'm going to hold you to that, then. Listen to me, Chakka." Alicia kisses the top of her head carefully, wonders how almost eight years could have gone by so quickly. "You," tells her gently, firmly, needs her to believe it, "Are the most important thing in my life. And nothing will ever change that. Okay? Absolutely nothing. I love you ever so much. If I could make it all better, I would, you know that, right? I really would."

"Did you… want me?" Chakra asks tiredly, plays with Alicia's hair like a small child.

"What? Of course I did, sweetheart. Shall I tell you a secret? I've never wanted _anything_ as much as I wanted you. I've told you that I had to wait a couple of months to find out if you were healthy enough to… enough to survive, haven't I? Those few weeks were honestly the longest few weeks of my entire life, because I was so scared I wasn't going to be able to be your mammy. I wouldn't be without you for anything, and if… if I've ever made you think otherwise, then I am so, so sorry…"

"But did you want _me_?" Chakra asks, clings tighter. "That isn't an answer."

"I'm not quite sure I know what you mean, then, darling..."

"Like… did you want… like… a normal daughter? More like you? Less… weird?"

"Where on earth has this come from? You're not weird. We've talked about this, haven't we, children your age can be really, really nasty to each other sometimes, you just have to try and ignore it..."

"Sophia kept saying I was weird again, on Tuesday," Chakra admits quietly. "And… and Evie told everyone when we were doing Literacy that she thinks you look normal, and you…"

"And I what?"

"And you… you probably…" She's sobbing again now, breath coming in hiccups. "You… probably… wish you… had… a more… normal… daughter… like… popular… and…"

How can kids be so bloody cruel? Months of problems with Sophia, months and all of a sudden, even half asleep and desperately upset, she's starting to wonder if Evie, whoever Evie is, is just as bad.

"No, no, no, no, no, listen to me. Chakra? Chakra, listen. You're normal. Of course you're normal, anyone saying you aren't is talking complete and utter rubbish, alright? I really, really mean that." She feels as though her heart is breaking, because this is all her fault, it must be- this part of it all, at least, this sudden burst of questions. Evidently, she hasn't made her feel secure enough, somewhere along the line she's gone horribly wrong, and even if she hasn't caused the rest of her problems, even if there isn't a genetic link at all, she's responsible for this current escalation.

She should have seen this coming a long time ago, realised what she was getting herself into, Alicia curses, because hindsight is a wonderfully cruel thing. Chakra is Ethan's daughter, after all; how did it take her until now, until she found him again, to realise how alike they are, how alike they always have been? Ethan has never exactly been full of self-confidence socially, after all…

It's easy to forget. In some ways, she's nothing like Ethan at all, character-wise, not if their shared ability to spend hours at a time completely captivated by topics anyone else would consider painfully boring is disregarded. Perhaps it would be different had she grown up with both her parents around until now, but as it is, Alicia can see more of her own character traits in her, even now, and perhaps that's nurture rather than nature; she doesn't know.

Either way, she should have seen it coming. She should have done something about it sooner, she should have taken action long, long before this, should have made absolutely certain that her daughter never bought into the whole 'weird' mentality, should have remembered Cal and Ethan's dynamic, how Cal had enjoyed teasing him and putting him down to big himself up at times and how every now and then it would get to him, properly get to him, lead to the explosive arguments that made her so wary of coming between them, what now feels like both yesterday and a lifetime ago.

This is just so Ethan. It's not something Alicia would ever have worried about in her own childhood, wouldn't have even entered her head, but it's so, so Ethan.

"I wouldn't change you for anything, Chakra," Alicia promises. "I love you exactly as you are, I wouldn't ever want you to be any different. Okay? I couldn't possibly love you any more than I already do, you're already perfect. I don't want you to be like me, or any of the other kids in your class, or anyone else. I'd quite like it if you give at least a few of the stupid things I did as a teenager a miss, to be honest, I did some seriously stupid things in school. And medical school. And… you know what, I don't think I stopped doing stupid things until I had you, you're a pretty good influence. But I just want you to be you. Nothing's ever going to change that. Okay, so if you do something really, really bad, then I can't promise I won't be angry, or disappointed. But nothing you do or don't do will ever make me love you any less, and do you know why? Because I carried you for… well, I managed seven months of the whole pregnancy thing. I gave birth to you, I've been your mam for eight years, more or less. You're my baby, and do you know what that means? It means I think you're perfect no matter what, because you're mine. That is the last thing you ever, ever need to worry about, sweetheart, okay? I will always, always love you, even if you make me listen to weird music and drag me to every English Heritage site in existence."

"I love you, too."

"You're adorable, aren't you? Can you stop wriggling though, please, if you're going to cuddle up like this. Your feet are freezing."

"Sorry."

"Hey, it's okay. Are you going to go back to sleep, then? Hang on," Alicia realises, thoughts operating in slow motion, far too tired to be thinking clearly and she's missed it until now. "Hang on… so you and Sophia are still on the same table for Literacy?"

"Mrs Davies says I have to learn to work with other people, even when I don't want to."

"Oh, she does, does she? Well, we'll add it to my list of complaints to make when I email your school, then. Not that you need to worry about that, because I'm never sending you back there. Do you have anything else to add?" Alicia tries. "Chak? Because I need to email them anyway, so if anything else happened at school that upset you last week, or if anyone said anything, or anything that happened before, for that matter, anything at all, you can tell me. You know that, right?"

"I know." Chakra blinks sleepily, presses up against Alicia. "Are you crying?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Your cheeks are all wet."

"Are they?" Alicia feigns obliviousness. "I think I had a weird dream, that's all. Nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart, okay? Oh my goodness, you're clingy tonight. It's alright, Chakka," she sighs, squeezes, half-hoping she might be able to somehow take away all the pain and anguish that's so clearly going on inside her head. "You don't need to worry about anything, you just need to go back to sleep. Chakra?" she says softly. "Chakra, you know that you are always, always going to be my first priority, don't you? No matter what. Even if Ethan and I get back together, you always come first, that won't ever change. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, you know that? You really, really are. Me having a boyfriend wouldn't change that, I promise."

"Are you and Ethan going to get back together?" Chakra asks sleepily.

"I don't know," Alicia tells her, fights to keep her voice level, disguise the doubt and the hurt and the upset and the fear that she's going to lose him all over again. "I don't know, darling, that isn't really the point. What I mean is that just because we've been spending more time with Ethan, that doesn't mean I'm going to start spending less time with you, okay? You're stuck with me for life, no one's ever going to be more important to me than you. So if you're worried I'm going to start neglecting you, there's absolutely no reason to, I…"

"I know." Chakra goes still at last, finally relaxed, apparently completely unfazed, and as much as Alicia is relieved, can cross that particular worry safely off of her list of potential causes of Chakra's recent decline before her private psych assessment and all the horrors she's afraid will come with it, she's despairing a little too because she really does believe her, and it means she's still none the wiser.

"Okay. Okay, let's get some sleep, then," Alicia sighs softly, arm already going a little numb trapped underneath Chakra's still form but she doesn't care, doesn't want to let go of her, not while she's like this; because yes, she's calm now, but just a few minutes ago it was a completely different story.

It's going to get better, Alicia tells herself.

It has to get better, she has to believe it's going to get better.

The trouble is, sometimes she just can't quite see how.

"Right, so you're going drink that, and then you're going to write your name on here at the top, and then while I'm making your breakfast I'm going to give you words, and you're going to spell them, okay?" Alicia instructs the next morning, trying to deal with a thousand different things at once, rummages amongst the chaos on the kitchen counter. "Like a spelling test, except it's not a test, it's a… practice. Look, you can have a sparkly orange pen and everything, what more could you possibly want? Are you ready? Island."

"Like, Ireland like where Auntie Bea and Great Nana are from, or island like an island?" Chakra asks, glances across the kitchen worriedly. "Are we leaving Guinevere and Morgana by themselves tonight?"

"Island as an island, but I'll give you a bonus point if you can spell Ireland as in the place as well," Alicia tells her, tries to decide if spinach and strawberries in the same smoothie is a terrible idea. "And yes, we are, but Nana's going to drop by and feed them tonight and tomorrow morning, they'll be fine."

Chakra nods, silent for a moment, writes slowly, meticulously. "Why do I have to do spellings?"

"Because I have to go and see Mrs Gainham on Thursday, and I'm going to tell her I'm not sending you back to that school, given I clearly can't trust them to look after you properly," Alicia tells her. "And I was going through your school folder this morning, this is the spelling homework you got when you went in last Tuesday, do you remember? We didn't get round to looking at these, did we, what with everything that happened after that. So, I figured if you do it now, I can take it with me on Thursday with all the other stuff you've been doing for me, and we can get your teacher to mark it all. Given, you know, I pay my taxes and everything so you can go to school. Least they can do, really."

"What are taxes?"

"Why are you so good at distracting me? Taxes are money that grown-ups have to pay to the government, and then the government spends the money on things like schools and hospitals, so they're free for everyone to use. Except sometimes they take the taxes and put them into pointless things we don't really need, not the things we really do need them for like the NHS, and then I have to work stupid hours with faulty equipment and all my patients have to wait on trolleys in the corridor because I don't have enough beds for them all. Occasionally. That's your next spelling word, not how often I have to leave patients on trolleys in the corridors. I wish that only happened occasionally."

"Why do the government not give you and all the other doctors more money so you can buy enough beds for all your patients?"

"That's a really good question, and I wish I knew the answer. Nature."

"Is that a silent k word?"

"I'm not helping you, you're going to have to think about it really, really carefully, okay? I'll tell you when you've finished. Spell it the way you think, and then have a look at it and see if it looks right. You done? Possible."

"Why do you have to go to my school to see Mrs Gainham if I don't have to go back there?" Chakra asks anxiously.

"It's just… grown-up admin stuff," Alicia covers quickly. "Absolutely nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart, I promise. Century."

"Like, the Roman army soldiers who conquered Britain and wouldn't let the Celts be in charge anymore, or a hundred years?"

"When did you get so clever? Century like a hundred years," Alicia tells her, closes her eyes for a moment, blinks, tries to remember whatever it was she used to use on them back in medical school when she'd been out until five am, partied too hard and drunk too much, broken up with her latest boyfriend in a grim alleyway outside a club and cried too many tears over someone she'd barely been with for five minutes. There had been something she'd used to reduce the puffiness around her eyes, tell-tale sign she'd been crying, in time for her nine am lectures, she just can't remember what it was now and Chakra might have accepted her appearance this morning unquestioningly, but Bea certainly won't, and the child psych won't either.

"How many more?"

"Five more, we're doing all of them. Question."

Should she text him? Alicia wonders. Is that going to make it all better or worse? She can't decide. He's probably furious with her, and rightly so, if she texts him now she might only aggravate him even further.

But then she desperately wants to seek his forgiveness, can't bear the thought of losing him now when she's only just found him again…"

"Mammy?"

"Sorry, sorry. Describe."

"Have you muddled up the order?"

"Yep. They're all in alphabetical order on your spelling sheet, but we can't have you learning the sequence not the actual words, can we? That's how I failed my French GCSE. Thought I knew everything on the vocabulary sheet, really I just knew the order."

"You _failed_?"

"Yep, I failed. Got a D. Thankfully, you don't need French to be a doctor. Knowledge."

"Did you fail anything else?"

"Nope, that was enough. Sorted out my revision techniques after that. I nearly failed History, to be fair, but I just about scraped a C for that one. Particular."

"Mrs Davies said you have to have the best grades in everything if you want to be a doctor, when we talked about grown up jobs at school."

"You don't if you went to a failing, underfunded Gateshead secondary with a GCSE pass rate of about twenty percent. But you're much more intelligent than I ever was and you're not going to a secondary school like that if I have my way, so you will be absolutely fine, you can do anything you want to. Right, last one. Experiment. You done? Yeah? Can I have a look?"

"I think I got nature wrong."

"Nope. Nope, you got it right in the end, didn't you, you've crossed out the k you put at the beginning, right? It might be better to rewrite it next time though, okay, just so it's really, really clear. So that means you've got all of them right, how amazing are you? And we didn't even practice these or anything, did we? I'm _so_ proud of you. So are you going to eat your breakfast for me?"

"I'm not very hungry."

"No? That's fine, but I really need you to try, sweetheart, okay? I know it's hard. Look, I'm going to come and sit down with you, and…"

She trails off, interrupted by the doorbell. "I'm going to get that, are you going to start to eat that for me? Or try, at least? Yeah? I'm coming right back."

"Is it Auntie Bea?" Chakra asks, plays with her food resentfully.

"No, it's not Auntie Bea, we're picking up Auntie Bea on our way to London," Alicia calls back over her shoulder as she heads down the hallway, frowns, not expecting anyone, definitely not in the mood for cold callers. "Eat your breakfast!"

She fumbles with the front door, double bolted, safety chain, turns the key in the lock, still a little more paranoid than she would like to admit.

She pulls open the door, comes face-to-face with a strange man on the doorstep, holding out a bouquet of brightly-coloured gerberas.

"Delivery for Alicia Munroe?" the man on the doorstep asks, sounds out her name 'Alissia,' only adds to her confusion.

"Oh, yes…" She's about to point out that she wasn't expecting anything, stops herself in time as she realises that's possibly the point, accepts them, turns back into the house in almost a strange state of shock as she rummages for a card, it's been such a long time since anyone sent her flowers apart from her mam on her birthday.

 _I'm so sorry. Sorry you had to go through it all by yourself, and sorry I reacted so badly. I love you. I don't blame you, not for any of it. Ethan x_

He doesn't hate her. He doesn't hate her after all, she's spent the last twelve hours panicking that his radio silence was a sign that he couldn't forgive her, when in fact he's been worrying exactly the same thing…

He doesn't hate her. He doesn't hate her, they're okay, everything's okay.

Maybe not everything, Alicia considers, heads back along the hallway to re-join her daughter- their daughter. But suddenly it doesn't all feel so hopeless, suddenly she feels as though maybe, just maybe, it might all be alright in the end.

"Who are the flowers from?" Chakra asks curiously, as Alicia reappears in the kitchen, searches through the cupboard at the end of the kitchen for a vase. "They're pretty."

"They are, aren't they?" Alicia agrees. They're from Ethan."

"Why?"

"Does he need a reason to send me flowers?" Alicia teases. "No reason, I guess I've just got him really well-trained, that's all," she lies. "Okay, I'll do these in a minute, shall I, I'll come and eat with you first…"

She stops in her tracks as she approaches the kitchen table again, turns back to her daughter, sees the very thing she's been hoping she won't progress towards, all these months hoped it won't come to because it makes it all the scarier, somehow, takes it all into territory she never wanted to enter, not ever, but certainly not with her seven-year-old daughter.

"Have you just transferred half your breakfast out of your bowl and into mine while I wasn't looking?"

Chakra shifts guiltily, can't meet her eyes.

"Chakra?"

Her daughter fixes her gaze firmly on the kitchen table, refuses to look up, pretends not to hear her.

"Chakra, I'm not angry with you," Alicia tries carefully, sits down next to her, squeezes her hand in a bid to offer her some reassurance. "I'm really, really not, I promise, but I need you to tell me the truth, sweetheart. Am I right?"

Slowly, ever-so-slightly, Chakra nods.

"Okay. Okay, come here," Alicia sighs, scoops her up, sits her on her lap. "We haven't talked about this as much as we should have, have we? I'm sorry. That's my fault, I'm so sorry, but if you listen to me now, I'm going to explain it all to you properly, okay? Yeah? Good girl. So, you know what calories are, right?"

Chakra shrugs, curls into Alicia's chest.

"They're like energy, okay, we need food because we need the calories to give us energy. Have you heard people talk about calories in, calories out? Probably me, and if you've picked this up from me, if I've made you feel like you need to eat less, if you've been watching me doing stupid crash diets then I am really, really sorry, sweetheart. It just means if you're taking in as many calories as you're burning as energy, then your weight is going to stay exactly the same. Or it's going to naturally increase for you, because you're still only little, aren't you, you've got a lot of growing to do yet. And it means that if you aren't eating as many calories as you're using for energy, you're going to lose weight. And you absolutely did not and do not need to lose any weight, you were perfectly healthy and completely beautiful just as you were. And you're still just as beautiful. But being underweight isn't healthy, it's going to make you really ill if we don't get you better soon, and the calories in calories out thing goes both ways."

"So…" Chakra blinks, hesitates, shakes her head.

"I think you've worked out what I mean, haven't you? So we really need you to eat more than you normally would need to, if you're going to get back up to a healthy weight. So yes, I keep giving you more food than I normally would, and I know it's not fair, and I'm sorry, I wouldn't do it if it wasn't completely necessary. It's called refeeding, and it's completely shit, I know it is, but it's temporary, okay? That's a bad word though, and you're not to use it. I don't ever want to her you using that word, please. But it is, it's horrible, I know it's horrible, especially when your brain's giving you mixed signals about food as it is. But I really need you to be eating properly, so your body can heal, and the better you can do that, the sooner this bit will be over, okay? And I'm going to take you to see Mrs Beauchamp's friend I told you about in London today, remember, and she's going to help us find someone in Holby you can go and work with to fix everything that's going on in your head. It won't feel like this forever. It's going to get better, we just need to make sure we're getting you proper help, don't we?"

"Did you have to talk to someone?" Chakra asks quietly.

"I… yes. Yes, I did. And I didn't really want to, at first, I… I suppose it was a bit different, really, because I was pregnant with you, I knew I had to try and get better because I was going to start making you ill too if I didn't. But I didn't want to… I guess I didn't want to go because I didn't want to get better, I… I needed to unlearn the whole mentality thing, I guess, and I did know that, but I didn't, at the same time. I… I've lost you, haven't I?" Alicia sighs, wonders how on earth she's supposed to explain it all to her daughter when she still can't quite make sense of it all herself, all these years on.

"This is… look, this is really hard to explain," she tries. "Do you feel like that, too, sometimes? Yeah? I guess… I did know it was… oh, screw it, we need to stop being so afraid of calling it what it is, don't we? Both of us. Eating disorder. I knew it was an eating disorder, but… because it was an eating disorder, because it was affecting how I thought I looked, how I thought I should look, how I thought about food, everything… I didn't want to get better at first. I was completely terrified of it, I thought everyone trying to help me was just going to make it all worse, because it was an eating disorder, and I was completely convinced I was… fat. But it gets better. You have to try and remember that, okay? It does get better, you aren't going to feel like that forever. I don't feel like that anymore. You've just got to get through this next bit, and then we're going to get you some proper help, and you won't feel like this anymore. I promise. It's like having a broken ankle, or something, it's just instead it's something that's wrong inside your head. But we can fix it, alright? You have absolutely nothing to worry about, sweetheart, because we're going to fix it. I promise."

"What if it isn't all something that's wrong in my head, though?" Chakra asks, voice wobbles, fingers tangled in Alicia's hair. "What if I really am…" she shakes her head, falters, doesn't want to say it.

"Listen. I'm your mam, and I'm a doctor, and I specialise in children's medicine, so that basically means I'm the expert, okay? And I promise you are _not_ fat. Alright? You never have been. And if you don't believe me, that's fine, I've been there, I get it. But I really need you to try to. I wouldn't lie to you about this, Chakka, I promise I wouldn't. I just need you to trust me, okay? You're my baby, I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you. So are you going to go and sit back down for me, then? Good girl." She reaches for Chakra's breakfast, redistributes, can't decide which way this is going to go at all and desperately hoping it's not going to be the total disaster she fears it might be. "We're going to eat, and then we'll finish packing and we'll go and pick up Auntie Bea. And then we'll get going. Is that alright?"

Chakra frowns at her breakfast, bites her lip. "Will the psy… psychana…"

"Psychiatrist?" Alicia offers.

"Will the psychiatrist make me go to stay in a special hospital where children who have ana… ana…"

"Anorexia?" Even uttering that word still feels so completely, devastatingly wrong. "I think you mean an inpatient unit. Who told you about those?"

"Mrs Davies. She said if I don't eat, I'll have to go to live in an… inpatient unit until I do."

"Oh, she did, did she? I'm glad you told me, Chakra, I'll add it to the list. She shouldn't have said that to you, saying that kind of thing is completely unhelpful, isn't it? But no. No, you won't, I've already looked into this. I have to give permission for you to go into one of those, they haven't caught onto the vegan movement yet and they'd make you eat meat and dairy, and we're not doing that. Not unless you want to eat those things, anyway, if you do that's totally fine."

"I don't."

"There you go, then, you're not going into an inpatient unit. Problem solved. That's the last thing you need to worry about, darling, it's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen, I promise. Are you going to eat some of that? Please?"

Chakra nods, picks up her spoon, raises it to her mouth and Alicia lets out a breath she hadn't even realised she was holding in.

It always seems to go like this.

It's yet another thing that doesn't quite add up, yet another reason she's so sure there has to be more to it than anyone has realised, but she just can't place it, no matter how hard she tries. It's the inconsistency, the reluctance to the point of distress on one occasion and the lack of an issue the next, there has to be a pattern…

"So we just need to get your appointment out of the way, and then you get to spend the whole of tonight and tomorrow morning with Auntie Bea in London, remember?" Alicia tries, desperate to distract her for long enough that she keeps eating.

"Will I see you though?"

"Well, you're staying with me until we're done with the psychiatrist. And then we'll take it from there, okay? Auntie Bea's taking you somewhere really exciting tonight and you're going to absolutely love it, but I can hang around for as long as you want me to. And then I'm going to go and see Ethan tonight while you're having an amazing time with Auntie Bea, we talked about that, didn't we? So you'll see me again tomorrow morning, after that. But you can phone me whenever you want, you know that, don't you, you only have to ask Auntie Bea."

"And you're definitely coming back tomorrow?"

"I'm definitely coming back tomorrow." Alicia frowns, curses herself for not realising it before. "Are you worried I'll stay in Glastonbury with Ethan?"

"No."

"Okay. Okay, but you know that I'd never, ever do that, right? I'd miss you far too much, one night's fine as long as I know you're safe, but I wouldn't ever want to be away from you for longer. Not until you're older and you want to be away from me for longer, anyway, that's different. You remember what I told you about this last night? You come first, okay? Always."

"Mrs Davies said last week that we all have to go on a… a… resida…. Residential trip, at the end of year three."

How is it, Alicia wonders, that the adults supposedly responsible for her daughter somehow managed to pack so many things she's apparently been worrying about ever since into the brief period she actually spent in school last week?

"Did she? Well, you don't have to if you don't want to. I loved that kind of thing, when I was at school, but I don't think I ever did it at… well, you'd be eight by then, wouldn't you? Eight's still really little, I'm not going to make you do anything like that if you don't want to."

Chakra nods, seemingly satisfied. "Mammy, I've finished."

"Good girl. You did really well with that, didn't you? Can you go and brush your teeth then, please? And then we need to finish packing, and we'll go and see Auntie Bea."

"Where am I going with Auntie Bea later?"

"I couldn't possibly tell you, Auntie Bea's sworn me to secrecy."

"You don't know, do you?"

"I do! She told me when she arranged it, that's how I know you're going to love it," Alicia tells her, waits until her daughter has disappeared up the stairs before she reaches for her phone, contemplates for a moment, decides she won't risk phoning, not now, not when Chakra is like this, not when she would be risking her coming down the stairs at exactly the wrong moment, listening in.

 _Warning you now, Chak is SERIOUSLY clingy today_ , she types out to Bea, heart twisting, struggling to work out what on earth she's supposed to do for the best. _Hoping she'll calm down before child psych. I still think you should take her later, I know she'll be fine with you, just don't be offended if she's a bit quiet. She's beyond excited already really, promise X_

She crosses the kitchen, takes a photo of the flowers on the counter,

 _Thank you 3 You didn't have to. I can't call just now, don't want C to know we've been arguing. But I'm sorry too, I completely overreacted._ _Are we okay? We can talk properly tonight? X_

 _I love you too, and I'm so sorry I didn't tell you before,_ Alicia adds after a momentary pause, still a little paranoid, because it all seems too good to be true that he's the one apologising to her when she's the one who failed their daughter, glances back across to the flowers, decides she really needs to do something with them if she wants them to survive until she's back home.

She's halfway through cutting the stems when he phone vibrates softly, Ethan's name appearing on her lock screen.

 _Of course we are. See you later X_

"We'll leave it there for today, then," Ethan tells his first student of the morning, hands shaking awkwardly as he checks the time on his phone. "So if you could send me your draft chapter before our next meeting, that would be great. We can start thinking about your conference paper after that…"

"Is that your daughter?" his student asks, glances over at the background on his phone screen.

"Yes. Yes… she… she lives in Holby with her mum, they came down to visit a couple of weeks ago," Ethan stammers hurriedly, taken aback, first time he's ever been asked this question and well and truly out of his depth.

"She looks like you."

"Do you think? I think she's the spitting image of her mum."

"She does. I can't really put my finger on what it is, but she definitely reminds me of you. Do you get to see her often?" his student asks, packs away her laptop.

"Well, I… yes," Ethan manages at last. "Yes, I've been very fortunate recently, her mum's brought her down here every couple of weeks or so."

"It must be hard. Being so far away, I mean."

"Yes… it… it hasn't been easy," Ethan manages at last, decides confessing the truth to his new PhD probably isn't the best idea, not this soon in their professional relationship. "But I've… well… Hopefully I'm going to be able to be a bit more involved with her, in the future. If I can win her mum over, that is."

 **Once again, I am so sorry for the delay! I've had an exceptionally busy few weeks and just haven't had as much time to work on this, I promise I won't make you wait so long next time. I know I promised you lots of Ethan in this chapter and I'm sorry it didn't quite work out like that- I've had to split this chapter in half because it got too long and convoluted, and you would have been waiting even longer. BUT I promise the next chapter will be from Ethan's perspective, so there is definitely, definitely lots of Ethan coming up next!**

 **Thank you as ever 20BlueRoses, guest (and thank you, yes, you cheered me up massively!), Katharine, Katie and Lewisek18 for your reviews, I have had the worst couple of weeks and your feedback is honestly the best.**

 **Katharine- I think you mean Chakra's medical condition? Exomphalos is basically an umbilical hernia that forms in utero, and usually contains the intestines and/or parts of the bowel, liver etc. It's usually corrected with surgery within the first couple of weeks after the baby is born. There is a clue here as to what Alicia might not have pieced together re Chakra's problems in the present storyline just yet...**

 **Reviews would be wonderful as ever, and I promise I will try not to leave you waiting so long next time. And I hope you haven't all given up on me!**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	38. Chapter 38

**Chapter 38**

He waits for her anxiously in reception, overcome with a protectiveness he hasn't felt since she came home from Manchester and fell to pieces, all too much too soon and horribly vulnerable, shaken, not Alicia at all.

He leans against the wall for support, crutches discarded in the corner and reluctant to sit down because his every instinct is screaming at him that she needs protecting all over again, that she needs him to protect her, and he doesn't feel he can do that stuck in a wheelchair- perhaps that's ridiculous, perhaps he needs to just get over himself, but that's just it, he hasn't had time to get used to this, has lived in a world for the last eight years in which his life with her, healthy, fully functioning, and his life now have been completely and utterly separate, and now those worlds are colliding he hasn't quite got to grips with it all, not just yet.

And yet he's shaking, violently so and deep down he knows it isn't just the Huntington's, when her text comes through to say she's just parked up and she'll be there in a few minutes.

It's all his fault.

He knows so little. That's another issue in itself; if anything, all this has only emphasised to Ethan just how little he knows of those missing eight years, and he's been so stupid, he's naively allowed himself to believe that it was just a matter of getting to know his daughter and simply picking up where he left off with Alicia, catching up on news, the kind that seems so frivolous now, nothing like this…

He didn't think. He didn't even stop to think about how she'd cope once he'd left her behind, not really. He just assumed… he assumed it was going to be a positive Huntington's result and that would be the end of it, assumed as far as she'd have to go through with an abortion and it would break her heart, yes, but he figured she had Bea and Ruby, that they would be more support to her than he could ever hope to be now, riddled with this disease. He assumed she'd move on, meet someone else and after that happened she'd hardly think about him at all, settle down, start a family and never look back…

It never crossed his mind that it wouldn't be a positive Huntington's result and a termination, and that's absurd, given the odds. Ethan can appreciate that now, but that's exactly how he saw it, blinded by his own diagnosis and the guilt of risking passing it onto an innocent baby, guilt at getting Alicia pregnant without confiding in her first, guilt at all the pain he was so convinced she'd have to go through following that painful diagnosis.

He never imagined this. He never imagined a negative test result, for starters, and even if he had, he wouldn't ever have thought it through as far as this.

It's his fault, all of it. It has to be. He thought he was doing the right thing at the time, running away from it all and leaving her to it, he thought he couldn't hurt her that way, but the truth is it was always going to be so much more complicated than that.

He should have been there.

It might have all been different if he had. If he could only have pulled himself together for long enough to focus on her, to realise that regardless of his own diagnosis, of the pain he was going through trying to come to terms with it all, she was suffering in equal measure. Because yes, it affected both of them; of course it did. But she was _pregnan_ t, it was different for her, she was the one who had to struggle through those long, painful weeks knowing that she might have no choice but to dispose of the life inside her, and yes, the decision they made in the end was agonising enough for him, but for her…

He didn't think. He just didn't think, he assumed she'd be alright, and if he'd been there… if he'd been around to support her, reassure her, if she only hadn't had to cope with him walking away from her like that on top of everything else, perhaps…

It's his fault. It has to be.

There's no possible way of looking at all this without coming to the conclusion that it's all his fault.

He's seen it, for god's sake. How many patients must he have had over the years in a similar situation, pregnant after their partner walked out on them and their mental state clearly affected by it all, and understandably so.

Why didn't it even cross his mind? Why didn't he stop and think, consider her feelings properly, why didn't he realise she needed support?

She needed him.

He can see that now.

The trouble is, it's all too late.

He never would have thought it of her. Perhaps that's incredibly naïve- it is naïve, he of all people should know better, but she's always been so confident, care-free, he never would have imagined…

Except she'd never been in a situation like the one he abandoned her in before, Ethan realises at last, sinking feeling in his heart.

He did this to her. This is so, so far beyond his areas of medical expertise, but he knows enough to realise that this could follow her forever, one way or another, if it hasn't already been plaguing her for the last eight years. There's no quick fix for this, nothing anyone can do but keep treating the symptoms if they reappear, and even if by some complete and utter miracle she's been free of it all for the last few years, that still isn't to say that it won't still come back to haunt her yet.

He could have prevented this. If only he'd stayed, if only he hadn't…

Finally, he sees her approaching up the front pathway, and in another lifetime, he would have run out to greet her, but it's been eight years and his body has begun to give up on him since the last time he did this, and he can't be what she needs, what she deserves, it's all hopeless.

And so he limps over when she passes through the automatic doors instead, can barely stagger without his crutches nowadays but they just aren't an option.

He can't pull her into a hug and hold her tightly and offer her all the comfort and reassurance he should have eight years ago leaning on crutches, hands occupied; it just isn't going to work.

"Hey," he murmurs, reaches out to pull her into his arms before she's even fully through the door, lets out a sigh of relief when she obliges, wraps her arms around his neck because despite her texts, despite the written indications that his apology attempt had the desired effect, until that moment he was still a little afraid that things would be different now, that they would be back to the distance that had lurked between them weeks ago, when she first found him again, that the trust would be gone and he'd have to start all over again trying to show her he could change, that maybe, just maybe, they could start again. "I'm so, so sorry, I should never have…"

Alicia shakes her head, relaxes into his chest. "No," she insists. "No, I'm the one who should be sorry, I overreacted. I… I know it's not an excuse, but it's kind of a… sensitive…topic…"

"Exactly. Exactly, I should have realised that, I should have been more understanding, I shouldn't have gone blundering in like I did without letting you explain first, I was an idiot..."

"It's okay. It's okay, I… I completely understand. She's your daughter, Ethan, of course you were worried I'd…"

"No, listen," Ethan protests. "Alicia, listen. I wasn't… when I said… when I asked if you were really in the best position to be dealing with Chakra's… Chakra's problems…"

"I know you were just worried about her. It's okay, she's your baby, I'd feel exactly the same if it was the other way around…"

"Will you let me finish?" he asks softly, leans his head against hers. "It wasn't that at all. You're an amazing mum, Alicia, that never even crossed my mind. No, I was worried about you, actually. I was going to ask if you're getting enough support, you know, for _you_. I was worried… not that I think you shouldn't be dealing with this, of course you should, you're her mum, I would never… I know I explained it terribly, I'm not exactly doing a great job of it now, either, am I?" he sighs. "What I meant was… I wanted to make sure you've been getting support, too, I just worry if she's well into disordered eating territory and you have history, you might… relapse…"

Alicia's expression softens in understanding. "Ethan," she tries gently. "It was a long time ago now, it was..." she shuffles awkwardly, flushes, ashamed. "You were only there at the beginning, you wouldn't have… I _hated_ being pregnant, mid second trimester or so onwards and it just sort of… I think because I was hiding it for so long and then it was like all of a sudden I had to get my head around… and I was… this is why I don't… it's not exactly the easiest thing to talk about, women are supposed to… and I just couldn't…" She shakes her head, surrenders, clearly struggling to explain it all. "It came up at one of my midwife appointments, she referred me for counselling, that was probably the only helpful thing that woman did, to be honest. It got… I don't think I exactly got over it until Chak was a few months old, but it did get better, the last couple of weeks before I had her weren't so bad. And I've been fine, for what, seven and a half years now. So you don't need to worry about me, okay? I'm fine."

"How can I not, though?" Ethan protests. "How can I not, this… this isn't the kind of thing that just goes away, Alicia, not always. You could… there's still a risk…"

"I know. I know, but I'm on top of it. Honestly. I knew I had a problem before, it wasn't like I couldn't see… I'm okay," she tells him, voice gentle, firm. "Honestly, Ethan. I'm fine. And you know now, don't you? You know, you can… but I'm fine. There's nothing to worry about, I promise. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before…"

"Don't be so silly. Shall we…" he trails off, pulls away slightly, gestures towards the corridor leading off reception. "Shall we go somewhere more private? There's space down here, there's usually somewhere not too crowded."

Alicia nods, glances around, and deep down, Ethan knows she's only looking out for him, but he just hates it, hates that it's all come to this. "Do you need..."

"Those are mine." He gestures to the crutches propped up against the wall in the corner, hands trembling. "Sorry, I…"

"Will you stop trying to apologise for this?" Alicia tells him gently, holds out the damned things. "None of it's your fault, Ethan, you didn't ask for this."

"But you didn't ask to have to deal with it either…"

"No." Alicia says simply, follows him slowly along the corridor, patient. "No, but I love you. I don't care about the rest of it."

"It's going to get so much worse, though, this is nothing…"

"Ethan. Ethan, I know," Alicia insists. "I know exactly what I'm signing up for, okay? Not that it matters either way. I love you, that isn't conditional, I'm not going to walk away just because you're ill. In here?"

Ethan nods, allows her to guide him over to the chairs by the window. "I don't deserve that," he says quietly. "After the way I've treated you, after everything you've had to cope with by yourself, I don't deserve…"

"And you were in shock," Alicia reminds him, sits down beside him. "You were in shock, I don't care if you knew it was coming or not, it's still just as painful to accept. And your life doesn't have to be over, Ethan, not just because of this. But it's still life changing, you need to give yourself more credit. I don't blame you. Okay? I never have, I… I can't pretend I haven't spent the last eight years wishing it could have been different. I've missed you. I still loved you, I never stopped. I blame myself, I don't blame you…"

"How on earth did you work that out?" He's watching her closely now, can't help himself, worrying already that her face looks thinner, that the signs have been there all along, ever since she found him and he's missed them, been too wrapped up in his own problems and dismissed any of the slightest concerns he perhaps should have had on the basis that he hadn't seen her for eight years, that everything had changed… everything… or maybe he's imagining things, maybe this is all just in his head, maybe this is exactly why she's avoided telling him until now, because she knew he'd only panic…

"Because if I'd known…" Alicia trails off, squeezes his hand a little tighter, can't meet his eyes. "Because if I'd realised something was wrong sooner, if I'd done more to help you open up, if you hadn't been trying to hide it all, if I hadn't been so wrapped up in all my own stuff, perhaps you would have felt…"

"No, no, no, no, no, darling, no. No, you can't think like that, I don't ever want you to blame yourself." Ethan pulls her gently into his chest, protective, can't bear the thought that she's somehow managed to conclude that it's her fault because it just seems like yet another way in which he's failed her, more pain and hurt he's caused, another reminder than in his blinded determination to protect her from his illness he got it all so, so wrong. "I… listen, I didn't want to tell you, I wanted to keep it a secret at first, and that wasn't because I thought you wouldn't be supportive, I knew you would have been. I just… I knew how hard you were working for your exams, it didn't seem fair to dump it all on you then. I thought if I could just manage to deal with it by myself until your exams were out of the way, then we could face it together, and I really do mean that. I really did hope we were going to face it together at first, I never… this, this was never the plan. I just…"

"You weren't counting on me dropping the whole pregnancy bombshell on you," Alicia finishes, voice heavy with guilt. "Exactly. It's my fault, it's my fault you felt you couldn't stay, I'm the one who…"

"The one who did everything possible to stop me walking away," Ethan corrects her softly. "It was my decision. You couldn't possibly have done any more to change my mind, it was my stupid decision, I wasn't thinking straight… I have to live with that. I have to live with what I did to you…"

"I'm fine, Ethan. I'm fine, and we're never going to know, I… I could have reacted exactly the same whether you were there or not, there's no point torturing yourself with it. I forgive you. Okay? I understand, I forgive you, and it's done now. Going over it all again and again isn't going to change anything. So let's just focus on now, yeah? We can't change the rest of it. And I… I really want to try and make us work this time." She leans into his arms for a moment, closes her eyes, and then her phone bleeps loudly and she startles back upright, rummages through her handbag.

"Sorry, sorry," she apologises. "It might be Bea, I need to check… just in case, since she's got Chak…"

"Of course. Of course, it's alright." He watches her carefully as she reads through the text, suddenly overcome with a hundred questions he should have asked before, when she first arrived after he'd apologised, established she was alright, stupid, Ethan, stupid, self-absorbed all over again. "Is she…?"

Alicia pauses for a moment, still reading. "She's fine. Sorry, I just need to…" she trails off, types out a reply, discards her phone again. "She's fine. I'd love to say it's all for Chakra's benefit, she was a bit on-edge this morning, I don't know if it was just because of the child psych but she wasn't as thrilled at the prospect of an overnight with Bea as she usually would be, sometimes I think she prefers Bea to me. She probably does, actually, Bea lets her get away with murder. So I had to promise her she could call whenever she wanted and she was happy enough with that- that was Bea, she's fine now, apparently, I thought she would be. No, this is more… it sounds stupid… this is the furthest I've ever been away from her, ever, geographically…"

"It's not stupid." Ethan strokes her hair absentmindedly. "It's not stupid, I guess when you're working…"

"She goes to Bea's, or Ruby's, or Mam's, whoever's available, really, or they stay at mine if I'm on nights for a few days in a row, so at least I see her. Or she goes to Elle's or Charlie's if I'm totally desperate. But… I don't know. I'm only fifteen minutes away if anything happens and I need to get back to her, I guess, same if I go out with the guys from work and leave her for a few hours."

"If you want to go," Ethan offers. "If you'd feel happier if you were in London, please don't stay here for my sake…"

"Hey, I'm staying here, okay? She's fine, she'll be absolutely fine with Bea, and I need to get my head around leaving her at some point. And besides, we need to make the most of this," Alicia tells him, closes her eyes, content, rests her head against his. "Believe me, child-free evenings are rare when you have to use up all your favours covering night shifts. I'm staying right here."

Ethan nods, hesitates for a moment, apprehensive, knows he needs to ask this question, and yet already dreading the answer. "How did it go with the child psych?"

"Oh, you know," Alicia sighs. "Warped sense of her own body image, I think that's the exact words she used. She did some art therapy with her, no one's managed to get her to explain how she feels particularly articulately, so far, anyway. But she's… she doesn't quite fit an anorexia diagnosis, apparently, and I'd agree with that. She's too inconsistent, she doesn't really fit with body dysmorphia, either. She's a bit of an anomaly, really. Anyway. She's ruled out the attachment disorder crap the first child psych kept fixating on, and she had a chat with Chakra about school, she agrees she's experiencing significant anxiety. I'm… I mean, I don't know what to do with her, really, at this stage, but I'm certainly not sending her back to that school until they can prove to me they've addressed their safeguarding issues. Their _major_ safeguarding issues."

"No," Ethan agrees. "No, not… not that I'm expecting to have a say, of course, not after the way I've treated you- both of you. But for what it's worth, I wouldn't feel comfortable with her going back there unless they can assure you what happened last week won't ever happen again, either. It's not even just about her mental wellbeing, is it, at this point, you can't send her there not knowing if they're going to make sure she actually stays in the building. Or, you know, take it a step further and make sure she doesn't end up so distressed in their care that she decides running away is the only solution."

"Exactly. I mean, I wonder if a fresh start is going to be the best thing for her at this point, to be honest," Alicia admits. "She was absolutely fine at her last school, she was that child who didn't want it to be the school holidays. I don't think she ever properly settled at this place, it was okay for the first month or so, but she wasn't ever exactly happy being there, even before all this kicked off properly. She's never made any friends there or anything. Even before they let her wander off by herself and lost her for twenty-four hours, I was starting to wonder if it's better to just give up on the whole thing now and try and move her to another school, give her a chance to try again somewhere else. The trouble is, I think it's bigger than just the school thing now, I think I'm just setting her up to fail if I send her off to a new school while she's like this. But then I have to do something with her, I can't just…" She closes her eyes, shakes her head, clearly thoroughly drained by it all. "I can't keep doing this forever. It's not even just about her needing to be in school for her, I need her to be in school if I'm going to get the education authorities off my back."

"Do they…"

"They threaten to fine you, if you don't send your child into school. And Chakra's teacher very helpfully told her I could go to prison if she keeps refusing, but that's very much a last resort, I think. I hope. But I've got another child psych report for her now backing me up, rather than the crap the last one came out with, so that should keep them off my case for a while. I've got to go and meet with her head teacher on Thursday and discuss it all, but as far as I can see there isn't really much they can do when the child psych recommendation is we don't push it for now. She's being referred for counselling, they want to go down the family therapy route with her as well- I think you're off the hook, don't worry," Alicia assures him quickly. "Unless you want to be involved, obviously. It's up to you. I guess the closest thing to a plan I have right now is to wait until she starts with the counselling, hope there's an improvement after that and then start looking into moving her to another school."

"I think that's the only thing you can do," Ethan agrees quietly. "Did anything ever come of… you know. The bullying thing?"

"Oh, don't. No, it didn't, I'm going to raise that one with them on Thursday. Although I know exactly what they'll say. They'll just say that it's Chakra's word against Sophia's and there's nothing they can do about it. It's been like that ever since she started at that school. No one ever seems to witness all the shitty stuff Sophia comes out with, and it sounds like it's not just her, either, Chak's started telling me about another girl who seems to be just as bad now. Her teacher put her back on the same table as them last Tuesday and told her she had to learn to work with people she doesn't like, can you believe that? I mean, that's not just me being overprotective, is it, that's…"

"Hardly the most helpful approach, given the circumstances," Ethan finishes for her. "I mean, I'm assuming when you say she's been so anxious about school you haven't been able to get her there, it's been a bit more than just…"

"Just the usual crying and protesting when they don't want to do something? Yep, just a bit more than that," Alicia sighs. "I can't remember how much I told you that day, I probably wasn't making much sense, I didn't have a clue where to start, really, everything was so… Sorry. Anyway, I… I tried, I really did, but I had to stop trying to get her to go around January, it just wasn't fair. She was so anxious she was vomiting, she was crying until she hyperventilated, she was… well, back then I thought she wasn't eating because she was anxious about school, I think it's pretty clear now that's only part of the whole picture, isn't it?"

"You did the right thing," Ethan murmurs. "It doesn't matter about school, she's seven. Her mental state's much more important than missing a few months of primary school."

"I wish her head teacher saw it like that."

"But the child psych does," Ethan points out. "Her school have to respect that. They might not like it, but they have to respect it. Listen, I… if there's anything I can do… or not do, you know, if you think having me around is making her worse, then I'll…"

"Ethan. Ethan, you're doing nothing of the sort. I promise. She likes you, she's warmed to you remarkably quickly, actually. And yes, I think we need to take things slowly for her sake… I… I know you're her dad, but she's still getting to know you, and she's not used to having to share me with anyone. She will be. She'll be fine, she likes you, she keeps asking when she can see you again. But I need to put her first, especially the way things are at the moment, I need us to take things nice and slowly so she has the chance to build up a relationship with you at her own pace…"

"Of course," Ethan agrees quickly. "Of course, it's not just about us, is it? Chakra has to be priority, for both of us. So if you ever think she needs me to back off…"

"That's not what I'm saying, Ethan," Alicia tells him gently. "I think we're fine carrying on as we have been right now, don't you? Moving forward, I mean. She's happy, we're happy, so everything's fine, okay? No more secrets, I promise. And I… I'm sorry," she stammers. "I'm sorry, I… I know I took it all out on you last night, I shouldn't have…"

"Alicia, you don't have to apologise." She looks so horribly vulnerable now, lower lip trembling, eyes wide, glassy, tell-tale signs that she's on the verge of tears and he hates this, hates that it's still all upsetting her so much eight years on, hates that he wasn't there to help her in the first place.

"But I do!" Alicia insists. "Say I don't have to apologise for the way I reacted, fine, but don't…"

"Alicia…"

"She was eight weeks premature, Ethan. She was eight weeks premature and she was the size of a thirty-weeker, it took her weeks after surgery to start feeding properly and that could all be my fault, I did that to her, your daughter…"

"And I walked away from her, from both of you, didn't bother answering my phone and therefore had no idea she existed for the best part of eight years," Ethan whispers, thoroughly ashamed of himself. "So, we're even, okay? There's no point going through it over and over competing for who's let her down the most, so let's just say we're even and call it quits, yeah? But for what it's worth, you don't know she wouldn't have been a low birth weight anyway. It could be just one of those things, there's no point torturing yourself with it…"

"I was nine pounds two, _and_ I was thirty-seven weeks, god only knows how huge I would have been if I was full term. There's just no way…"

"And I haven't got a clue what I weighed at birth," Ethan tells her. "Not a clue. Or what Cal was, for that matter. So for all we know, she just took after my side on that one. You can't keep doing this to yourself, darling. She's been fine until all this started, right?"

Alicia nods shakily. "I mean, she's never been tall for her age, but then she was never going to be, was she, not with us as parents. But she caught up, yeah…"

"And you've been fine since she was a baby? Then it isn't your fault, is it?" Ethan reminds her gently. "It's not anything you've done wrong as her mum, it's not anything she's learnt from copying you, it's not your fault. You can't blame yourself. You're already doing all the right things with her…"

"You don't know that. You don't know that, you didn't know there was a problem, last time you saw her…"

"Exactly. Exactly, you aren't making a big deal of it, for starters. You're protecting her. That's exactly what she needs. And you know what you're doing with the medical side of things…"

"I was…" Alicia shudders, grips his hand tightly, and Ethan can only hope that the subtle tremor there isn't unsettling her further. "It must be almost two years ago now… when I was at the Great North Children's Hospital I did a placement with their eating disorder inpatient unit."

"Then you know exactly what you need to do to help her, don't you? You couldn't be in a better position to be getting her through this, could you?" Ethan tries, can't bear seeing her like this. "She'll be alright. She will. It's just going to take time."

"It feels like I'm torturing her," Alicia admits quietly. "I _am_ torturing her, I know I am, I remember how this feels and it's completely shit…"

"But you're doing it anyway. Because you're her mum, and you're brilliant at it. She's going to be absolutely fine, because she has you. But you don't have to do it by yourself anymore," Ethan tells her sincerely, not entirely sure what good he can be, not like _this_ , but she shouldn't have to be struggling with all this by herself, not when Chakra is _their_ daughter, should be their shared responsibility. "If there's anything I can do- I know that's limited in itself, all things considered- but if… even if… I don't know, you just need to offload… you shouldn't have had to go through any of this by yourself, sweetheart, and it's my fault you have, I know that. And I'm so sorry. But you don't have to anymore, okay? Anything I can do to help, you only have to say."

Alicia nods, settles back into his side. "It's all part of the deal," she tells him, closes her eyes again.

"How do you mean?"

"I stop blaming myself for… for how I was when I was pregnant, and you stop blaming yourself for how you coped with your diagnosis. Or we try to, anyway. It isn't always that easy, is it?"

"It's not," Ethan agrees. "I know, it's not. But you're right. You're right, we need to try. There's no sense in us both beating ourselves up over all our regrets, you're right, it's over. There's nothing we can do about it. But we can make sure we're doing everything we can to help her now- well, you're doing that already, I'm the one who needs to step up there. You haven't damaged her, darling. Whatever else is going on in her head at the moment, it's obvious she knows you love her, she feels secure with you. And she's not going to have a clue about anything that happened before she was even born, is she?"

"I…" Alicia shakes her head, crying properly again now. "You'll hate me…"

"I could never hate you," Ethan promises. "I could never hate you, Alicia, none of this is your fault."

"The… the morning she ran away from school," Alicia manages shakily, and it's as though the flood gates have opened now, as though everything she's ever felt she's done wrong when it comes to their daughter is all pouring out of her at once. "I… I thought it was my fault… I… it must have been a couple of weeks ago now, she was upset about god only knows what in the middle of the night and then she started on about a girl at her school whose dad died of lung cancer, or something- I mean, he was probably smoking more than the odd one every few weeks after a bad shift, wasn't he, but I ended up promising her I was going to quit, I was desperate to get her to go to sleep, I would have done anything at that point. And then I was stupid, I was stressed the morning I had to take her into school and she caught me smoking at the end of the garden, I thought she was upstairs, I didn't think she'd know… Anyway, she got upset, we argued about it, I may have snapped at her a bit… I don't think I've ever shouted at her before, not properly, so then… when she went missing… I thought… I thought…"

"You thought it was because of you," Ethan realises. "Oh, Alicia…"

"I thought you were going to… I wouldn't blame you if you were livid, I mean… I've quit now, for what it's worth, that's it, I'm never touching a cigarette again, and I really mean it this time. She… I've never, ever smoked in front of her, I wouldn't, and she knows if I ever catch her doing it when she's older I'm going to be absolutely furious with her and ground her forever. It was a total accident, that morning, she wasn't meant to know and she left her coat at school, when she bolted, they gave it back to me when I went in and it absolutely stank of it, so that's it. I'm always going to associate it with her going missing from now on, aren't I, that's enough to put me off for life. But I'm sorry," she sobs.

"Alicia…"

"I know it's a disgusting habit, and I know you tried to get me to quit far too many times, I should have listened to you years ago, I never should have waited until she was nearly eight to do something about it, I should never have touched one when I was pregnant, let alone…"

"Alicia. Alicia, stop," Ethan tells her gently, grips her hands, desperately needs her to listen to him. "I'm not angry. Okay? I promise I'm not angry. I walked out, I left you to do it all by yourself, I'm in no position whatsoever to be criticising your parenting. I mean, yes, I'd rather you'd quit completely before you were pregnant, but one every couple of weeks isn't exactly the end of the world, is it? God knows I didn't exactly help, I put you under enough extra pressure, on top of everything else. And Chakra's fine, she's healthy, apart from all this at the moment, but we're going to fix this, she's going to get through it and she's going to be fine. You're a fantastic mum, you haven't done anything…"

"Sometimes I just feel like I'm getting it all wrong…"

"No, you're not," Ethan insists. "You're not, Alicia. And I know I haven't been around, I know all that. But it's obvious. You only need to look at Chakra to realise you're a fantastic mum, she's a real credit to you. If I even manage to salvage a relationship with her that's vaguely like yours, I'll be more than happy. You need to stop worrying you're not doing enough to help her, you're doing everything right and she obviously loves you, and that's all that anyone can ask for."

"Thank you," Alicia whispers. "Thank you, I… I just worry about her," she admits at last. "I mean, she's never exactly going to be model skinny when she's not starving herself, is she, with my genes- oh, don't look at me like that, Ethan. I'm not relapsing or anything, I'm just being realistic, she isn't. And I don't know what to do about that. I mean, I _can't_ do anything about that, obviously, but I feel like I should be, you know, preparing her, or something. I'm not convinced sending her off to rhythmic gym every week is the best thing for her body image-wise, maybe it's fine for now, but it might not be when she's a teenager and everyone else is stick-thin ballerina-like. I should have thought that through properly before I signed her up, I know that. And I can't stop her going now, I have no idea why she loves it so much, her gym coach is bloody terrifying. But she does, so it's not fair to try and wean her off it. I don't know, maybe I should find her a martial arts class and hope she takes to that, or something. But then she's… well, you've seen her…"

"She does her own thing, and she's brilliant," Ethan agrees.

"Exactly. She's not going to be swayed by anyone. It's pointless even thinking about it, really, I need to just accept she is the way she is and try to plan ahead, I guess." Alicia trails off for a moment, glances at Ethan almost a little nervously, hesitates. "So, when you say you'd do anything to help…"

"Anything," Ethan tells her sincerely. "I mean it. You don't have to do it all by yourself anymore."

"I've got a meeting with Chakra's head teacher, her class teacher, the learning support coordinator, you know, the whole cavalry, on Thursday," Alicia explains, blinks at him pleadingly. "Just to go through the child psych report with them, briefly, to reiterate that I am not sending her back there any time soon. And probably complain some more about how crap they are at pastoral care and basic safety, while I'm at it. How do you feel about coming with me?"

 **Thank you for being so patient, I know this chapter has been a long time coming! Hopefully it lives up to expectations. So you might be getting lots more Ethan from now on... :)**

 **Thank you so much 20BlueRoses, guest and Lewisek18 for taking the time to review the last chapter, and for being so understanding, I am so, so glad you're still enjoying this (and you're not too annoyed with me!).**

 **As ever, your feedback on this chapter would be massively appreciated, it's always really, really lovely to get your thoughts, I think this is the most actual Ethan/Alicia I've ever written! And you are always welcome to tell me what you don't like as well, I know this is another dialogue-heavy one.**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	39. Chapter 39

**Chapter 39**

 **28 weeks**

"And I'll be in the café around the corner, okay?" Ruby promises, as they walk along the pavement towards Alicia's mam's house together. "Just text me when you're done, I'll come and meet you back here. Or if you want back up. Or anything, whatever you need, I'll be here. But it'll be fine, you'll see. You've got nothing to worry about, once you've explained, they'll understand, they'll be completely fine about it."

Alicia sighs heavily, heart racing a little as they approach the house. "You don't know that, Ruby…"

"No, but I know they love you, and it sounds as though it all just got a bit out of control last week. And besides, it must have been a bit of shock for them- not that I'm blaming you for that, obviously," Ruby covers quickly. "I completely understand why you've handled it the way you have. But it would have been a shock to them, and that shock will have worn off a bit by now…"

"And they'll have spent the last week convinced I've been covering it up because it's not Ethan's baby, if anything it's going to be worse…"

"No, it won't be," Ruby says softly. "We've run through what you're going to say, haven't we? You just need to get it out quickly, before things can get too heated again, and take it from there. It'll be fine."

"I think they might be out," Alicia realises, hovers at the end of the driveway, reluctant to venture any further, already dreading this with every fibre of her being. "Dad's car isn't here, so either that or he's ended it with her. _Again_ …"

"Or he's just out and your mum's in," Ruby points out gently. "Front window's open. You need to try. That might be better anyway, right, if you only catch your mum today? You can explain everything to her now, get it all out in the open, and then you'll have her support when you tell your dad."

"I can't do this…"

"Yes, you can," Ruby insists, hugs her gently. "Go and get it over with. It won't seem so bad once you've told them, I promise. I'll see you in a bit, okay?"

She's shaking, as she walks up the front driveway, glances back over her shoulder to find that Ruby knows her far too well, is still standing there on the pavement, just waiting to be sure she goes through with it.

It's the fear of rejection. They're her mam and dad, and yes, she's an adult, more than capable of looking after herself by now, doesn't need them as such- not practically, at least. But at the same time, the possibility of this turning into long-term rift between them terrifies her, and Alicia knows she's hurt them, understands that, but what was she supposed to do?

Though perhaps she got it wrong, Alicia contemplates, heart racing as her fingers hover over the doorbell. Perhaps she should have just told them from the start, but then it wasn't supposed to be like this. They weren't supposed to find out like this, she was just supposed to keep it all a secret until she knew for certain she could go ahead with it, just in case, she wasn't supposed to lose all perspective on the entire thing, she wasn't supposed to fall apart, take an extra couple of months to get her head around it all enough to make it official…

She wasn't supposed to have to do it all by herself. That's what it all comes down to.

Ethan wasn't supposed to leave.

There's a sudden flurry of movement from the other side of the frosted glass in the front door, the sound of a key turning in the lock and for the briefest of moments Alicia wants to turn and bolt, make a run for it now before she has to go through with it, too afraid of how badly this might go to see it through until the door is open and it's far too late.

"I've got nothing to say to you, Alicia," her mam says coldly, blocks the doorway. "I tried calling Ethan, for what it's worth, God only knows how he must be feeling, but I couldn't get through, he probably thought I was taking your side and calling to..."

"It _is_ Ethan's baby, Mam," Alicia blurts out frantically, terrified of becoming locked in another shouting match of misunderstandings and hurt and anger and over-pent emotions.

"It is?" her mam frowns. "Then why…?"

"Because I was… because I hadn't told anyone, at that point, Ethan, Bea, Ruby, Mrs Beauchamp and that was it, because I didn't know how and then you got completely the wrong idea and I didn't know how to tell you the truth because it was all too… I just… please can I just explain properly?" Alicia pleads, suddenly feels like a teenager again, caught trying to sneak back into the house in the early hours after staying out partying and now having to grovel on the doorstep. "I'm sorry, I really am, I know you must be wondering why we… why I, didn't tell you, but I can explain…"

Her mam sighs, stands to one side, shoots her a look of thorough disapproval and hurt, though her hand brushes gently against Alicia's back as she steps inside. "Please tell me you haven't dislocated that elbow again."

"It's not that bad, Mam. This time." Alicia shuffles awkwardly, can't decide if her mam's gaze is fixed on her left arm, still in a sling, or the swell of her belly beneath it. "I've just got to keep it immobilised for another week, it's fine. Is Dad…"

"Your dad's at work, he had to drop in to deal with something or other," her mam tells her, leads them into the living room, and Alicia decides now is definitely not the moment to question whether that particular story is just a cover for him and Martin to reconcile, if the inevitable breakup speech is coming the moment her dad gets home. "Oh, don't be like this, Alicia, don't just stand there, you can sit down. How far along are you?" she asks, expression unreadable as Alicia lowers herself gingerly onto the sofa.

"Can I just…"

"No, you can't. If this is going to work, you're going to start being honest with me now."

Alicia sighs, bites her lip, knows exactly how badly this is going to go. "Twenty-eight weeks."

"Jesus, Alicia…"

"I know, and I'm sorry…"

"At what point were you going to tell us, then?" her mam demands. "Because that's what hurts, Alicia. That's the part that really hurts, you must have been, what, when you and Ethan split, at least…"

"We didn't split up, Mam…"

"But he's not here now, is he? That's what people usually call it when they aren't together anymore. But that wasn't all that long ago, you must have been…"

"Sixteen weeks, and yes, I know, I know most people announce it at twelve weeks," Alicia protests, defensive, knows exactly what's coming. "I just… it wasn't as simple as… I couldn't… I… Ethan has Huntington's Disease," she forces out at last, words come out before she's quite thought it through, complete and utter departure from everything she planned but somehow it feels like the only option now.

However terrible an approach it might be, she needs her mam to understand _now_ , before it all turns into a horrible confrontation again. She needs her to know that she wouldn't have been keeping it all from her if she hadn't thought it was the only way forward, if it hadn't been the only way she'd known how to cope with it all, with all the uncertainty, with Ethan's distress and then…. With everything…

"Is that…" Her mam freezes, and Alicia can see it in her expression, because it's so horribly clear that she's putting the pieces together, realisation slowly dawning upon her. "Is that the… the…"

"The really, really grim, progressive brain disorder with no cure and all kind of horrible uncontrollable symptoms, physical and cognitive decline over a prolonged period and then eventually it kills you," Alicia finishes for her, simplifies it all for her mam's benefit as best she can because she's running on autopilot now, knows she can't blurt out a definition to her mam laced with medical terminology she won't understand but she can't think straight either, first time she's had to explain it all to anyone by herself and it's all so painful, and she still hasn't accepted it herself, not really, still in a horrible, endless state of shock.

They just seem to stare at each other for a few moments, after that. Alicia isn't quite sure which one of them initiates it, how they fall into the trap of shutting down in the struggle to process it all, work out where on earth they're supposed to go from here (and Alicia's including herself in that, because she still hasn't managed to start thinking any further ahead than the next few hours, either, and it's been months since this whole nightmare began for her).

"This is why I didn't tell you," Alicia whispers tearfully, can't quite tell from her mam's expression whether her explanation is going to be considered reasonable justification or not. "I didn't know… I… I didn't know, he didn't tell me, he'd hardly told anyone, he… he found out years ago, Cal tracked down their adoptive mam, she had it, they both got tested. He's known for years, it's… it's genetic, if you have it, it'll kick in at some point, it's just a question of when. He knew it was only a matter of time, he just didn't want to think about it, I guess it was the only way he knew how to cope with it. But I didn't know… I had no idea, and we weren't… we weren't trying for a baby at all, it was an accident, I didn't even realise until I was twelve weeks, and I know, I know that's ridiculous, I know I should have…"

She glances up for a moment, realises she can't bear to meet her mam's eyes now she's broken contact, stares firmly at the carpet because it's the only way she can get it out, needs to just somehow struggle her way through this, finish explaining and then desperately hope that her mam will understand, that this will end the hostilities.

"I didn't realise," `Alicia continues, wipes at her eyes furiously. "I… it was right before my senior registrar exams, I was stressed, I was basically just working and studying all hours, I know it sounds stupid but I just didn't notice, I… I had other things on my mind, I guess. Anyway, so I… I told him I was pregnant, and I thought… I mean, I wasn't expecting he was for definite going to be immediately overjoyed, or anything, we weren't trying, we'd never really talked about having kids properly, but I thought… I don't know, I thought we'd be okay, I thought once he was over the shock he'd be happy about it, I didn't think it was the end of the world. But… I didn't know, so Ethan had to tell me… it's… Huntington's… it's genetic, there's… there's a fifty percent chance of passing it onto your kids, if you have it. So we had to…"

She trails off, hesitates, momentarily panicked because it's all so controversial, so contentious and she truly doesn't know if her mam and dad are going to understand her and Ethan's decision or not, whether they'll accept it willingly or this will turn into the latest source of tension between them.

"We didn't have a choice," Alicia pleads with her, desperately hoping she'll understand. "Well, we did, but not really, we… there's a test, you can be tested in pregnancy, to see if… if…"

"If the baby inherited it from Ethan," her mam finishes for her. "Oh, Alicia…"

"We had to do it, Mam," Alicia explains, almost frantic now, needs to force the rest of it out before she can't do it all anymore. "We had to do it, it's… you haven't seen what it's done to Ethan, and he's still in the early stages, he's got to spend the rest of his life knowing it's just going to keep getting worse and worse and then he'll… we couldn't inflict that on a baby, we just couldn't, not when we had the choice. Ethan… Ethan's adamant he doesn't want to live like this, he… we don't know if his mam knew or not, before she started developing symptoms, but we… we couldn't risk inflicting it on… on our baby, we had to…"

"I understand," her mam tells her quietly. "You don't have to justify it, Alicia, I understand."

"You have to… you have to go to genetics counselling, before they let you go through with the testing, that took a few weeks. We were going to… we decided we weren't telling anyone, until… we didn't think there was any need, we just… we were both trying to just not think about it, really, we couldn't face getting attached until we knew, and we thought… the whole thing should have been over by the time I was eighteen weeks, we should have had the results then, we thought if we could just pretend it all wasn't happening as much as we could until then, it might be easier. We were going to tell you, we just wanted to be sure we weren't going to have to…" Alicia shudders. "We were going to tell you at eighteen weeks, if it was good news. But then… Ethan didn't leave because we… because he didn't… it wasn't like that," she sobs, hardly registers her mam moving to sit beside her on the sofa until she's pulling her into a tight, comforting hug, holding her like a child.

"I was supposed to go in for the testing the week… the week I fell down the stairs, the week Ethan left, it was when I was still in the ED, it obviously didn't happen, but Ethan… he…" Alicia shakes her head, can't do this, doesn't want to remember. "He wasn't coping well with the whole thing, I mean… I get it, I really do, I don't know how you even begin to accept… it just… he couldn't deal with it, I don't think, he didn't leave because we… it wasn't like that, he just… he kept fixating on all the things he wasn't going to be able to do, he thought he was going to be a burden, and I told him he wouldn't be, of course I did, but he just wouldn't… he was in shock, I think, I mean, we were both in shock, but for him… he was absolutely convinced it… it would be a positive result, I kept reminding him it was fifty-fifty, but he just… I couldn't get through to him, he didn't… he didn't leave because he wanted to, I know he didn't, I think he did it because he honestly thought I'd be better off without him, and I _wouldn't_ have, I really wouldn't, I know it would have been difficult and heart-breaking and downright awful towards the end but I would have done anything for him, I still would, if he'd only answer his phone, or just… I don't know where he is, Mam, I just don't know, he's resigned, he's gone, he's put his flat on the market, he doesn't seem to be living there. But I… I don't care about the rest of it, he's still Ethan, even if… it can affect your personality, Huntington's, it can be really, really awful, but even then, it wouldn't have made a difference, I would still have loved him, I'd never…"

"I know," her mam says softly, strokes her hair, and Alicia closes her eyes, relaxes, surrenders to it all, just relieved it's all over, and there's a nagging self-consciousness in the back of her mind that her mam is holding her so tightly her bump is pressed up between them and she feels uncomfortable and disgusting and _fat_ and she can't explain why, but she doesn't care enough to do anything about it, can't muster the energy. "I know, darling, I know you would have. It's alright. So…" her mam pauses for a moment, careful, hesitant. "So if… if you wanted to wait until you'd had this… this test, for Huntington's, before you decided to go through with, and you're twenty-eight weeks… then…"

"The baby's fine," Alicia confirms tiredly. "I mean, the baby doesn't have Huntington's. I'm… I only got the results back six weeks ago, I… I was supposed to have it done the week I fell down the stairs, it was… it was the same day Ethan left, I was supposed to have the test done that week but then that didn't happen, I had to wait until I was twenty weeks and then I didn't get the results for another two, everything just got delayed and I felt like I was in too deep then, I felt like I'd committed myself to keeping it a secret, I just… I couldn't face telling everyone we'd chosen to… I can't even say it, neither of us could, we… it's just so controversial, isn't it, we didn't know how people were doing to… I suppose we could have just said I'd had a miscarriage, or something, but I couldn't… I don't know, it just… it just seemed like the best way of trying to cope with it. Bea and Ruby knew, Mrs Beauchamp knew, but that's it, it wasn't… Bea and Ruby were going to work it out eventually, and Mrs Beauchamp needed to know, it wasn't… it wasn't personal, I promise it wasn't. I was going to tell you, right after I found out she was clear for Huntington's, I really was, but then I had a scan that day and she…"

"She?" her mam asks gently. "You're having a baby girl?"

Alicia nods. "She's… she's got something called exomphalos, it's like a hernia, basically, her abdominal wall isn't forming properly, her intestines are in a membrane outside her abdominal cavity, that's what they said originally, anyway, they're talking about it affecting her liver as well now, I don't have a clue about sonography, really, I don't know if they're just being incompetent or it's really that borderline, I just… I don't know… it's treatable," she assures her mam quickly, wishes she felt as confident in that assertion as she desperately wants her to believe she does. "She's going to have to have surgery, once she's born, it can be corrected with surgery relatively easily. But this is why I held off telling you after I knew, I… I just… I needed to get my head around it all first, I… I was so preoccupied with the whole Huntington's thing, I didn't even think about there being anything else wrong with her, I just… I don't know, I should have thought about it, I shouldn't have been so stupid. I thought if she didn't have Huntington's then that would be it, she'd be fine, I just… I was going to tell you, I promise I was, I was working up to it, I never meant to…"

"I know. You don't have to apologise any more, darling," her mam murmurs, rubs her back gently. "We're the ones who should be apologising, your dad and me, aren't we? Well, mostly me. We got it so wrong, Alicia, I'm so sorry."

Alicia shakes her head. "It wasn't just you. I didn't exactly make it easy for you, I know that, I'm sorry too…"

"But we shouldn't have jumped to conclusions like we did," her mam insists firmly. "We should have given you a proper chance to explain, we just made everything worse for you, didn't we? I can see that now. I'm so sorry. But we're here for you now, okay? Your dad will understand. I wish you'd felt you could tell us," she sighs quietly. "We would have supported you, Alicia, whatever you wanted to do. I can completely understand why you wanted to… why you wanted to be sure," she settles on at last. "I don't know much about Huntington's Disease, but from what I do, it's… it's…"

"It's seriously horrific," Alicia finishes for her. "I know. I couldn't have risked inflicting that on a baby, Mam, and we wouldn't have known, you can't test children unless it's during pregnancy and you… and you agree you'll… terminate, if it's positive, it's to do with having the choice of not knowing if you've got it. I couldn't have… it's bad enough Ethan has to go through this, I couldn't do it to a baby when I had the choice…"

"You don't have to explain, darling. I understand. Is that why you didn't want to tell us before?" her mam asks carefully. "Were you worried we wouldn't agree with your decision? Alicia? Because we would have supported you, whatever you wanted to do, we would have…"

"Kind of, I suppose. But it was more I… I thought you wouldn't need to know, I thought… I was just trying to pretend it all wasn't happening, really, I thought it would all be so much harder if I let myself get attached, I thought if I could just try and ignore the fact I was pregnant it wouldn't be so painful if I had to terminate, and I couldn't… I couldn't work out a way to tell you within that, I… it wasn't because I wanted to keep it from you, I promise it wasn't…"

"It's alright. It's alright, sweetheart, I understand how. You don't have to try to explain anymore, I understand. Don't get upset, Alicia, it's alright. Come on, Alicia, it's okay," she sighs, holds her tightly, squeezes her shoulders. "It's not good for the baby, is it, you getting this upset?"

"If that's true, I've messed her up beyond repair already," Alicia sobs, can't bring herself even to pretend anymore, flood gates opened and no going back.

"No, you haven't," her mam soothes. "I didn't mean it like that, darling, it's just one of those stupid things people say. I'm sure she's absolutely fine in there, you… you said this… condition she has…"

"Exomphalos."

'Exomphalos," her mam repeats, hesitant, unsure. "But you said it's treatable?"

"If it's just the exomphalos, then yes. But she's… exomphalos is linked to various other conditions, there's nothing else showing up on her scans or… I had a full genetic screening, when I had her tested for Huntington's, nothing's showing up at the moment but there's various things that might not, I won't know for definite she's okay until she's born. But even then, she's… it's still major surgery, on a newborn, she's far too little for major surgery…"

"Have you done it before?"

"The surgery she'll need? No, I… I don't have any direct professional experience, really, I've supervised emergency neonatal surgery, but it's not the same thing. I hope it isn't, anyway, she's… the midwife wants to refer me for a caesarean at thirty-six weeks, it's complicated, it's to do with the exomphalos, and she's measuring seriously tiny as it is, and I can't… it's my fault, I know it's probably my fault, I'm terrified she's going to be a scarily low birthweight and she'll end up in NICU for weeks and it'll be all my fault…"

"It's not your fault, darling. Don't be ridiculous, of course it's not your fault," her mam tells her firmly, hand reaches out slowly and Alicia can tell exactly where this is going, wraps her arms around her bump quickly, protectively, not in the mood for anyone touching her, even if it's her mam.

"Is she moving?"

"You won't feel anything," Alicia lies, presses back softly at the gentle nudges against her hand. "She only ever seems to be really active when I'm in the middle of a complicated procedure, or something, it's like she knows."

"You were exactly the same. Only ever in the middle of the night, for _weeks_."

"I'm sorry."

"Hey, what are you apologising for?"

"I don't know," Alicia admits quietly, flushes. "I don't know, I don't know what I'm doing with anything at the moment, everything's just such a mess…"

"You're fine. You're fine, darling, everything's going to be fine. You've just had an awful few months, that's all. I can't even imagine…" her mam shakes her head. "But it's going to be better from now on, we're here for you now, okay? Me and your dad."

"Dad might not…"

"Yes, he will. We can tell him together, if you like. He'll understand. He will, Alicia, it'll be fine. Have you got everything you need?" she asks gently. "If you're going to have a baby in, well, it could be eight weeks, couldn't it…"

"Oh, don't," Alicia moans, mildly alarmed. "I am nowhere near ready to have her in eight weeks. But yeah, I'm fine for baby stuff, Bea and Ruby are actual angels."

"Okay. And you've managed to get your maternity leave sorted, and everything? I'm guessing you didn't do anything before you knew…"

Alicia nods. "It's all fine. It's fine, I'm working until thirty-five weeks and then I'm off from then, just in case I get pushed down the elective caesarean route."

"And are you sure you're alright to be working until then?" her mam worries. "You look exhausted, Alicia. You look absolutely exhausted, you look thin- you do," she insists; some of Alicia's scepticism must have shown in her face.

"I look huge."

"No, you don't. You know what I mean, Alicia, it can't be the first time you've heard that lately. It'll be stress," her mam tells her gently, and she should tell her, Alicia knows she should, she should be honest and tell her, but she can't quite find the words, let alone the energy. "It'll be stress, you need to be looking after yourself better. You're eating for two now…"

"That's an urban myth, Mam. It's only like, an extra two hundred calories, or something. Don't ask me anything more complicated than that, though, I only really do paeds nowadays."

"That'll be what I did wrong when I was pregnant with you, then, but even so. You need to be taking care of yourself. Have you had lunch? No? I'll make you lunch in a bit," her mam decides. "You're not working later, are you?"

Alicia shakes her head. "Not until tomorrow evening, now."

"Should you still be doing night shifts?" her mam worries. "It just seems so…"

"I've been doing them for the last seven years, Mam, I think I'll be fine. Everyone else just has to get on with them, they manage." Alicia decides this is definitely not the moment to bring up the article she found in one of her late-night panic trawls through every medical journal under the sun suggesting a link between erratic shift patterns in pregnancy and low birth weight, because what's the point, what's the point of worrying about it when there's absolutely nothing she can do to change it, when thousands of other women manage perfectly fine with this every year so there's no reason she can't, no reason except her total failure to keep everything in perspective, to be normal, she just wants to be normal, get through the next few weeks like she's supposed to, not like this…

She rummages through her handbag for her purse, awkwardly, one-handed, determined to change the subject.

"Okay," her mam sighs. "Okay, but… listen, anything you need, you just have to tell me. Do you promise, Alicia? I take it Bea and Ruby have been…"

"Bea and Ruby have been absolutely brilliant," Alicia assures her. "I don't think I'll ever be able to thank them enough. And they haven't even been looking for a new place to rent, or anything, which is pretty much the definition of true friendship when they know they're going to have to share a house with a screaming baby in a couple of months." She holds out her ultrasound scan for her mam to take, hopeful this is going to steer them into safer territory.

"Oh Alicia, she's beautiful!" her mam exclaims. "She's absolutely beautiful, she looks just like you."

"How can you even tell?" Alicia asks, bemused. "You can't see her face properly, it's too blurry…"

"No, but I remember what you looked like on these. Trust me, she's going to look exactly like you. So you think she could be here in the next two months?"

"Eight weeks, at the absolute earliest. I don't care if Obstetrics want to go down the elective route before that, it won't be happening. She's going to be tiny enough as it is."

"So you're telling me I've only got eight weeks to get my head around being a grandmother?" her mam teases. "I'm joking, darling. I'm joking, I can't wait."

"She's going to be in hospital for the first couple of weeks, at least," Alicia warns. "It's major surgery, she's going to be…"

"And we'll be there," her mam promises. "We'll be there, for both of you, if you want us to be."

"Thank you." Alicia leans into her mam's side, suddenly exhausted. "I'm so sorry I didn't…"

"Hey, what have I said? You don't need to apologise any more, darling, it's alright. Everything's going to be alright now, you'll see. You're going to get through it, in a few weeks you'll have a beautiful little girl and it'll all be worth it, you'll see. Are you happy?" her mam asks gently. "Alicia?"

"About… about this? Of course I am, why would I have put myself through all this with her if I wasn't… Sorry," Alicia mumbles, realises she's perhaps being a little harsh. "Sorry, I didn't mean… I wouldn't change _her_ for anything, I really wouldn't. I mean, it's pretty rubbish timing career-wise, it's probably going to take me twice as long to make consultant now, I think it only could have been worse if it was right after I finished medical school, or something. And I… I just wish it had been different, at the beginning. I feel like I spent the first five months desperately trying not to bond with her, and it's… I don't think it's affecting how I feel about her now, I really don't, but I feel so guilty…"

"But she won't know," her mam reminds her softly. "She just needs you to love her when she's here, Alicia, that's all. You're going to be an amazing mammy. Have you thought of a name for her yet?"

"I've got a massive long list of all the ones I don't like. But I think her middle name's going to be Callie. You know, for Cal. I think Ethan would have liked that. If we'd… if we'd got as far as talking about names. I mean, he might pick up the phone tomorrow, he still might be here when…" Alicia trails off, shakes her head sadly. "But I don't think he will."

"I guess… I guess he doesn't know that…"

Alicia shakes her head. "I'm not telling him by text. He'd completely convinced himself it was going to be a positive test result and, you know, everything that would have had to come after that. I can't tell him he's going to be a dad by text, that isn't fair. But he won't pick up the phone… so… I don't know…"

"No, you can't tell him by text," her mam agrees. "I don't know, darling. I don't know what else you can do, either. You need to just let him work through it all and hope he'll come to his senses, I suppose…"

"I haven't stopped trying," Alicia tells her desperately. "I keep trying to call him, I'm still texting him, just… I'm trying not to bombard him, obviously, I just want him to know I'm not angry, that he can come back whenever he wants, I won't… I understand. I mean, it hurts, but I understand, I'm not going to hold him against him or anything, I… this has been awful for him in a completely different way, I can't even imagine…"

"Then you're doing everything you possibly can," her mam tells her gently. "You can only do so much, Alicia, you've got to be looking after yourself as well. Ethan wouldn't want you to be stressing yourself out like this, would he? And if he would, I'll kill him."

"Mam…"

"I would! I know it must have been hard for him too, but that's not the point, is it? He got you pregnant, he should be taking some responsibility."

"I really think he would if he could, Mam…"

"I don't care. I don't care, I'm your mam, it's my job to protect you, not him. You'll understand in a few weeks. I don't care if he's struggling, you shouldn't have to be going through this by yourself either," her mam insists. "But you're going to be fine. You don't need him, Alicia, you're going to be absolutely fine without him. You'll see. I think your dad's going to be home in an hour or so," she tells Alicia, hugs her tightly, hand gently pats the side of her bump before Alicia can bat her away. "So, why don't you stay, and I'll make you some lunch, and then we can tell your dad together? What do you think?" **  
**

**See, I'm getting faster again! I will have a LOT more time than I do at the moment after next week, so I promise I will get back to updating this more regularly.**

 **Thank you so much Guest for reviewing the last chapter, I'm so glad you picked up on all the Chakra references. I'm very conscious that they can't just slot back into how things used to be and for Ethan especially, the idea of them being together probably feels very familiar and completely alien at the same time, because having a child he hasn't known about is going to change everything.**

 **Please do keep reviewing, your feedback always makes my day so much better. And you are more than welcome to tell me if end of term assignment panic is coming through in my writing, I am always open to constructive criticism too!**

 **One final thing, if I was to write a chapter for one of my other stories in the next week or so, do you have a preference?**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	40. Chapter 40

**Chapter 40**

"Are you sure about this?" Ethan asks cautiously. "Leesh? We don't have to, we can just…"

"Oh my god, Ethan, stop stalling," Alicia moans, tugs impatiently. "I'm fine. I want this, I'm fine, I've never been so sure of anything."

She pulls him down on top of her, relaxes, and in that moment Ethan truly believes it's the right thing to do, that she really is fine, that this is what both of them want, gives in to his urges and for several moments, everything is perfect and she moves with him, closes her eyes, expression content. And then out of nowhere her expression changes, pure panic horribly visible in her face and too-late, Ethan realises what's happening, can't react before her breathing is laboured and she's trembling violently, frozen, helpless, terrified.

"I can't… I can't… please…"

"Alicia? Alicia, it's alright," Ethan tries, fights against the shaking of his limbs to move off of her, curses himself, this disease and the terrible impact it has, curses everything, because he can't get away from her as quickly as he knows she needs him to, still pinning her down, trapping her, for far too long and he should have thought of this, he should never have let her persuade him, he should have trusted his instincts, held off, should have known it would be too much for her, should have taken things slowly, should never have risked pushing her too far like this, he _knew_ , he knew she was going to struggle more than she would admit but he didn't do anything about it, and now he's hurt her, thrown her straight back into flashback territory and this was all so avoidable…

"Alicia? Alicia, listen." He's practically thrown himself off the bed, hunched on the floor rummaging for his underwear discarded on the floor of her hotel room- their hotel room, perhaps, he doesn't know- hates that he can only do everything in slow motion nowadays, needs to comfort her but he _can't_ , not yet, needs her to know he would never do anything to hurt her, anything she didn't want and he's not going to be giving her that message until he's located his pyjamas. "You're alright. You're alright, darling, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, you're safe. I promise you're safe. Alicia? Alicia, talk to me."

She's silent, offers him nothing at all by the way of a response, and it's with considerable trepidation that Ethan pulls himself back upright, clings onto the side of the bed for support, practically crawls onto the mattress, coordination well and truly gone a long time ago and it's only going to get worse from here, give it another five years or so and he might not be able to comfort her when she needs him to, she deserves so much better…

"Alicia?" Ethan tries again.

Her eyes are tightly closed, breathing frantic; she's hyperventilating, Ethan realises a moment later than he should have, he's been away from medicine for too long.

She's hyperventilating, her breath coming in sharp, frantic gasps, startled sobs as though she's catching even herself out, shit…

"Alicia? Listen to me, darling. You're alright. You're safe, you're fine, I'm not going to hurt you. You're absolutely fine, it's over. I'm sorry, Alicia, I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have pushed you into it. I'm so sorry. I'm never going to do that to you again, I promise. You're fine. You're absolutely fine, Alicia, can you take some nice deep breaths for me? Alicia?"

Should he touch her? Is physical contact going to help pull her back, calm her down, or will it only make it worse? She's shaking and she's showing no signs of hearing anything he's saying her at all and Ethan can't bear this, can't bear that he's the one who's done this to her…

"Alicia? You're fine, sweetheart, you're fine, I just need you to breathe for me." He brushes his fingers against her wrist lightly, testing the waters, breathes a sigh of relief when she doesn't flinch away, even seems to relax a little. "It's okay. You're okay, sweetheart, you're safe. You're safe, I'm not going to hurt you, I promise I'm not. You're fine. Can you take some nice deep breaths for me? Yeah? You're alright. You're alright, Alicia, I promise. You're alright now, I just need you to keep breathing for me and then this is going to pass. You'll see."

She's shivering now, tense, visibly trembling, lies naked in the middle of the hotel bed, vulnerable, exposed, curls up into herself as though she's suddenly horribly self-conscious and ashamed, and Ethan wants to cry for her.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, blinks, eyes fill with tears and her voice trembles, can't quite look at him. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry…"

"No, no, no, Alicia, you've got nothing to apologise for," Ethan soothes, begins to reach out towards her and then suddenly it hits him that he's assuming she's come out of her flashback, knows where she is, knows that it's him with her, not Eddie and that she's safe, but what if she hasn't, what if she's still trapped in that nightmare and she's apologising because she thinks… she thinks…

Ethan doesn't even want to think about that.

"Alicia?" he tries again gently. "Alicia, it's Ethan…"

"I know," she manages quietly, finally opens her eyes fully, glassy, pupils dilated, breathing shallow, awkward, still not out of her flashback, Ethan realises, not fully, not quite yet. "I know, I'm sorry…"

"Hey, what have I just said? You've got nothing to apologise for, Alicia. Nothing. You're okay now. You're safe, I'm not going to hurt you…"

"That's why I'm sorry," Alicia whispers shakily. "I know you wouldn't, I'm sorry…"

"No, I'm sorry," Ethan tells her firmly. "I'm the one who should be apologising to you, I never meant to upset you. I should have thought, I should have been more careful. I'm so sorry. Can I… can I touch you?" he tries, careful, slow, waits for Alicia to nod in consent before he shuffles closer next to her, reaches out, gently brushes the tears from her cheeks, ignores the nagging worry in the back of his mind that in a few years' time he might not be able to do this anymore, hands might be so shaky that he'll be of no comfort to her. "You're alright. You're alright now, I promise. I've got you. You through the worst of it now, do you think? Yeah? Okay. Okay, keep taking nice deep breaths for me then," he murmurs, and she's still so horribly tense and shaky and it's all his fault. "What can I do?" Ethan asks her carefully, desperate to redeem himself, to do something, anything, to help her. "Do you need anything?"

She's silent for a moment, trembles, and it seems almost as though she's struggling to focus long enough to make sense of his question.

"I think…" Alicia manages at last, blinks, glances over the other side of the bed. "Somewhere…"

"What do you want?" Ethan frowns. "Leesh? Oh, okay," he realises, reaches over her, arms shuddering beneath his weight and perhaps he shouldn't be doing this, will pay for it tomorrow but he's so determined not to let her down, needs to prove to her somehow that his disease hasn't rendered him totally useless, that he can still take care of her. "You want these?" he asks, offers out the pyjamas, clean underwear folded neatly on the bedside table, all of a sudden hit with the realisation that the t shirt is his from another lifetime, worn, threadbare, as though she's been sleeping in it for the last eight years and it's been through the wash several times too many.

He's hurt her. He's hurt her more than he can even bear to think about, she deserves so much better…

Alicia nods gratefully, pushes herself upright. "Thank you. I'm sorry, I… I know it's ridiculous…"

"No, Alicia, no it isn't. You're fine. You don't have to apologise for anything, I… I'm not going to do anything you don't want me to, darling, I promise I'm not going to hurt you, but if you'd feel more comfortable if you're not… that's fine. It's fine. I just want you to feel safe, that's all I care about. I'm going to get you some water," Ethan decides, gingerly pulls himself up off the bed, holds onto the wall, coordination gone as he struggles over to the table on the other side of the hotel room, retrieves the water bottle, trying to buy her some time to cover up while his back is turned.

"It's not that," Alicia says quietly behind him. "It's not that, I… I just… if we're not going to… I think we've just established I still can't, I mean, it hasn't got any better since the other week, has it, if anything I've got worse…"

"Because I pushed you too far, though," Ethan points out gently. He limps over to sit beside her, offers her the water, rather more relieved than he'd like to admit when she accepts it gratefully, leans into his side, apparently completely at ease in his company again. "That was my fault, I'm so sorry, if I'd just let you tell me what you were comfortable with, like last time…"

"Last time I couldn't cope before we'd even had sex, Ethan, that doesn't count…"

"No, but it'll get better. We can take it as slowly as you need, darling, it's fine. I want you. Okay? I love _you_ , sex isn't as important as you feeling safe. And if it never happens, that's completely fine. I promise. I just want you. So if you don't feel comfortable being naked around me, it's fine, I understand, we don't have to…"

Alicia shakes her head. "It's not that. Well, it is, but it's not… look, if we're… if we're not going to have sex, I just feel like you're going to notice…" She curls into his side, wraps her arms around his neck, head against his chest, self-conscious. "My body doesn't look the same as it did before…"

"What?" Ethan remarks, bemused. "Is that really all you're worried about? You look exactly the same, for what it's worth, you've hardly aged at all, but even if you had… you've had a baby, Alicia…"

"Exactly!" Alicia protests. "Exactly, and I never did manage to lose all the weight I gained when I was pregnant, and I'm covered in stretchmarks and everything just bulges out where it shouldn't…"

"Don't be so silly. You're beautiful." He rubs circles into the small of her back soothingly, worried about her all over again. "You don't look any different..."

"You're sweet." Alicia sighs, relaxes into his chest wearily. "I know you're only trying to make me feel better. It's been nearly eight years and I still look like I'm three months pregnant, or something…"

"You didn't even look pregnant at three months."

"Four months, then." She pouts, unimpressed, bats away Ethan's hand brushing against her side. "I don't think it would have been as bad if I hadn't had the hysterectomy right after I had Chak, like, _literally_ right after I had Chak…"

"Will you stop?" Ethan runs his hand through her hair gently, pensive.

All of a sudden, it's dawning upon him again that perhaps all her problems could have been held off long before this point if only he'd been there, if only he hadn't walked out and left her to deal with it all by herself with no one to reassure her, no one to remind her she was beautiful… would it have made a difference? Would she have been able to cope better, had he been there, would she have managed to sail through pregnancy relatively unscathed by the psychological side, would she be more secure now?

Every time he thinks he's understood the full extent of the damage he's done to her, it seems as though sooner or later, it becomes clear he's only just scratching the surface.

"Listen," Ethan tries gently. "Alicia, listen. I love you. I think you're beautiful, I can't see what you're talking about at all. You've got nothing to be embarrassed about. But even if I could see it, you've had a baby. You've had our baby and she's perfect, and I left you to go through it all by yourself, and I'm so, so sorry. You had, what, an unassisted homebirth and then a hysterectomy…"

"Not really unassisted," Alicia corrects him. "I mean, Ruby was there for all of it, or all of it I'd actually realised I was in labour, anyway. And Bea managed to get back from the pub with about five minutes to spare. So… assisted, I guess, just by medics with no actual medical equipment or anything, not until the RRV arrived after…"

"You're amazing," Ethan says simply. "You're amazing, I can't even… you shouldn't have had to do it by yourself," he tells her painfully. "And I hate that I did that to you. I never meant to hurt you, Alicia…"

"We've been through this," Alicia reminds him softly. "I don't blame you, Ethan, I never have. I understand…"

"I know. And I'm beyond grateful you've somehow managed to forgive me. But that's not what I'm saying. I think you're beautiful. And I'm always going to think that, because I love you, and anything you're worried I'm not going to like now is because you gave me our daughter. That's the last thing you ever need to worry about. We can take this as slowly as you need us to, okay? I'm not going anywhere. I love you so much."

Her phone vibrates softly on the bedside table- or it must be hers, Ethan concludes, she's with him, there's no one else who would be texting him at this hour.

"Can you get that?" Alicia murmurs, settled into his chest and clearly reluctant to move. "Passcode's the same."

He reaches out, picks up her phone, pauses for a moment as he mentally scans the text. "It's from Dr Kinsel- Bea. Concert's just finished, Chakra loved it, they're lurking at the stage door to see if they can get Chakra a photo with the ginger one who plays the violin and then she's going to take her back to the hotel, and she promises she'll try to get her into bed sometime before midnight."

"You mean our seven-year-old's nowhere near her bed yet, but we are?" Alicia moans sleepily, eyes already closing. "Oh, you know what, I don't care, I'm still getting over her child psych referral this afternoon. And last week. And we're like, ancient, compared to her, she's clearly just got started on the whole going out partying thing a few years too early. Tell Bea to tell Chakka I love her and I'll see her tomorrow."

"How are you spelling that?"

"No idea, just put Chak, or something. Have you never heard me call her that before?"

"No, but it's sweet." Ethan falls silent for a moment, concentrating, because everything takes more concentration nowadays and he hates, it, he just hates it. "Okay. Okay, I'm done."

He glances down at her protectively, curled into his chest, finally relaxed. "Shall I turn the lights out? Leesh?"

But her breathing has levelled out at last, and she's already asleep.

 **I am so, so sorry! I know this chapter probably reads like a filler chapter, that's because it's supposed to be the first half of a longer chapter, but I've had no time to write for the last two weeks and I wanted to get something up for you because I'm worried if I leave it too long you'll all lose interest! As some of you know, I've had a major deadline for real-life stuff looming over me for the last month or so that's just taken over my whole life, but as of tomorrow I will finally be free of that, so I will be back to having time to write again! But I am really sorry for the delay and how short this one is, and I hope you don't hate me. Thank you so much guest, lewisek18, 20blueroses and BrightWrites for your reviews on the last chapter, I know I say this every time but you are all exceptionally lovely. And I promise I will get another chapter of Atoms/My Heart was home again up for you soon.**

 **I'm not going to tell you the whole story and why on here for privacy reasons, but I was lucky enough to get to meet Chelsea a couple of weeks ago and received a private message from her afterwards, and I can confirm she is so, so lovely in real life. Actual angel. Another reason it's taken me forever to write this chapter, I was ever so slightly star struck for a couple of days!**

 **Please do leave me a review and let me know you haven't lost interest, because I am terrified you all will have! I would love to know if you like the chapters from Ethan's perspective, or if you'd rather I stick to Alicia.**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	41. Chapter 41

**This is the first chapter of a double upload- the authors' note will follow with the second chapter!**

 **Chapter 41**

"Mammy!" Chakra exclaims happily as Alicia climbs out of the car, lets go of Bea's hand, runs ahead of her along the pavement and practically throws herself into Alicia's arms.

"Oh my goodness, how do you have so much energy?" Alicia teases, catches her, picks her up, hugs her tightly to her chest. "I know for a fact that you weren't asleep until close to 1am this morning. I missed you so, so much. Did you have a good time with Auntie Bea?"

She's probably doing it all wrong, Alicia considers. The first child psych would probably tell her that telling her daughter she missed her is the worst thing she could possibly do, insist that it's definitely attachment disorder and that projecting her own anxieties about being separated onto Chakra, or some rubbish like that. But just two nights ago, she was sobbing hysterically half-convinced that Alicia didn't love her as much as she would if she were different, and so surely, it's important to keep reminding her that while she's perfectly happy to let Bea take her off to London overnight, that isn't to say she doesn't miss her desperately when she doesn't have her with her?

"I missed you, too." Chakra curls into her arms momentarily, cuddles, and Alicia decides she doesn't give a damn if all the so-called professionals think nearly eight is too old to be this clingy. "We went to see Celtic Woman, and it's like a show, and they're from Ireland, and they sing Irish folk songs and then they sing their own songs and they have Irish dancing and stuff, and it's really cool, and the one who plays the violin and the harp has red hair too and it's really pretty, like Auntie Bea's, and we met her afterwards round the back of the theatre, and she's really nice, and Auntie Bea has a photo of us on her phone."

"She does?" Alicia smiles gratefully at Bea, finally caught up with them. "Wow, that sounds amazing, you'll have to show me that later. But can we go back for a moment, please, your hair is really pretty too."

"Thank you." Chakra leans into her again doubtfully.

"You're welcome. Can you sound a bit more convinced though, please? Yeah? I wouldn't tell you that if I wasn't true, would I? Your hair is gorgeous. What are you going to say to Auntie Bea, then?" Alicia prompts her, lowers her down, takes Chakra's bag from Bea.

"Thank you, Auntie Bea."

"Hey, you're welcome, lovely." Bea turns back to Alicia, reaches out instinctively, pulls Chakra away from the road. "But don't stand on the edge of the pavement like that, please, that's really not a good idea. She's already thanked me about a hundred times, Leesh, you've got her seriously well trained."

Chakra peers in through the car window curiously, and then her face lights up. "Hi Ethan!"

Bea raises her eyebrows.

"Is Ethan moving in with us?"

"What? No, not at the moment, sweetheart, and please don't ask him that," Alicia pleads hurriedly, voice lowered. "It might make him feel uncomfortable, or under pressure. He's just coming to stay with us for a few days this time, Chak, okay? Are you going to go and get in the back, then? Behind Ethan, please, so Auntie Bea can have enough legroom. Good girl. It's temporary," she mouths to Bea, can tell she's not entirely convinced as she opens the car door, climbs into the back.

She knows, of course, having spent the last two hours in the car with Ethan, that he isn't entirely convinced that another hour or so trapped in close proximity with Bea is the best idea, either, but they're just going to have to find a way to get on with each other somehow.

Alicia suspects that, rather accurately, Ethan has guessed that while Bea might be firmly in support of them trying to make their relationship work again, she isn't going to just forgive him unquestioningly, either.

"Dr Kinsella," Ethan stammers awkwardly, glances across to Alicia as she starts the engine, checks the rear-view mirror, almost as though begging for assistance, completely out of his depth.

"Oh, it's Bea, okay? We're not in work now. Or I'm not for, what, another eight hours or so, anyway," Bea groans. "Turns out when you stay up until one am in your thirties, whether you had one too many or not doesn't make a difference to how rough you feel the next morning. Not counting weird shift patterns, obviously. I mean, you expect to feel grim on weird shift patterns, don't you?"

"I feel fine," Chakra insists brightly, though Alicia suspects she'll be asleep within half an hour. "Ethan? Auntie Bea bought me a t shirt, from the concert, and we had Leb… Leband…"

"Lebanese," Bea offers, brushes Chakra's hair behind her ear, fusses.

"Lebanese food, in this café place that had vegan food, and we went on the tube, and then before you got here we went to the science museum this morning, and we were learning about space, and planets, and the solar system, and it was kind of like in Harry Potter when they learn about astronomy. And there was a room with lots of different skeletons in it, and they were… they were… they were like, old humans, because humans weren't always like we are now, and their bones looked different, but Auntie Bea said that was thousands of years ago, King Arthur and Guinevere and everybody else who lived in Camelot and fought the Anglo-Saxon people would have had… skeletons… like we do."

"Wow, it sounds like you had a fantastic time."

She's babbling far too much for Ethan, Alicia contemplates absentmindedly, as she indicates, pulls out towards the motorway junction. He's still not quite used to her, not yet; children were never exactly his forte back in the ED, and dealing with a paeds patient in cubicles is of course nothing compared to having to get to know his own daughter at almost eight years old, having had no idea she existed at all until a few weeks ago.

She's babbling too much, giving him far too much information to work out how to respond to in a child-friendly way all at once, and he's going to clam up and lose all confidence in himself when it comes to knowing how to talk to her, Alicia can see it coming.

"Are you going to let Ethan get a word in edgeways, Chakra?" she teases lightly, suspects she's desperately trying to keep herself awake and she's closer to crashing and burning than she previously thought. "Do you want to tell Ethan what kind of music Celtic Woman is?"

"It's like, old Irish folk songs," Chakra explains, eyelids beginning to droop slightly, leans against Bea's side. "But it's not like when Heather Dale does Irish folk songs, it's more like a musical, except it doesn't have a story. But Irish folk songs always have stories anyway. I have some on Auntie Bea's phone if you want to hear some."

"You know, that's a really good idea, but why don't we save that until we get home?" Alicia suggests, shoots Ethan a knowing look. "Yeah? Then we can really listen to it properly, can't we? Good girl."

"Okay. But that means we aren't listening to Britney, either."

"I do not listen to Britney in the car anymore," Alicia lies, conscious of Ethan's bemused expression. "I stopped doing that when I was, like, twenty…"

"Yes, you do," Chakra insists, oh-so-innocent. "You have all your Britney CDs here, I can see them, look…"

"Nope. Nope, they're definitely not Britney. I think half the CDs I have in this car are your rhythmic music."

"How long are you going to stay with us for?" Chakra asks curiously, apparently long since moved on. "Ethan?"

"Oh, I'm… I'm not sure just yet," Ethan explains, flustered. "Well… a few days, I suppose, until whenever Mummy has some time to drive me back, I can't… well, I can't really manage public transport nowadays."

"I've already told you, it's fine," Alicia reminds him firmly. "Whenever I'm not on shift is fine."

"You've got Chakra, though…"

"I don't mind, though," Chakra insists. "I could come with Mammy, I like Glastonbury. We still haven't done the other King Arthur walk, Mammy, and you promised we could go to Stonehenge…"

"I did, didn't I?" Alicia agrees. "You see? Not a problem at all, she wants to come anyway, Ethan. I can take you back whenever, okay? Whenever I'm off shift, it's fine. I can drive you back whenever."

"Are you going to stay until the weekend?" Chakra asks. "Because I have a gym competition at the weekend." She pouts, unimpressed. "If Miss Yekaterina lets me do it."

"Well, we're going to try and persuade her you're well enough to do it, aren't we, Chak?" Alicia tries. "Yeah? Did you eat everything Auntie Bea gave you?"

"I didn't eat all of the Lebanese food, because they didn't have a children's menu that was vegan, and so Auntie Bea asked if I could have a child's portion but they still gave me too much food."

"To be fair, it was far too much food for her," Bea agrees. "But you ate most of your breakfast, didn't you, Shakalaka? So you did actually do pretty well. I think you did, anyway."

"That's really, really good, Chakra, isn't it? I'm really proud of you. So if you can just keep that up for the next couple of days, we can tell Miss Yekaterina that you've been eating properly this week, can't we? But Ethan might not want to come to your gym competition either way, sweetheart, that might be a bit…"

"No, no, I'd love to," Ethan insists, and it's with a little surprise but rather a lot of relief that Alicia notes there's nothing forced about his tone, honest, genuine, and it's so clear that regardless of whether or not a crowded sports hall and too many people and the organised chaos of small children dancing around with assorted equipment and music that's probably just a little too loud by Ethan's standards is quite possibly his idea of hell and it would have been long before the first signs of Huntington's kicked in, he'd do it for Chakra.

And that's exactly as it should be.

It's exactly as it should have been all along, of course, but they can't do anything about that now.

If Ethan is willing to put Chakra's needs first now, no matter what, Alicia will take that.

"You don't know what you're signing yourself up for, Ethan," Bea warns lightly. "Last time I took Chak to one of her gym competitions I got roped into doing makeup for half her gym team…"

"Not proper makeup," Alicia covers quickly.

They're still very much in the honeymoon period, she reasons. They're in that stage in which everything is still just a little too perfect and harmonious between them, but she's so conscious that it all has the potential to become a little more heated a little more rapidly than usual, than if it were just them, their relationship, because of that added complication of them sharing a daughter.

"It's not proper makeup, is it, Chakra?" Alicia continues. "It's just like stage makeup, isn't it, they don't put very much on your gym level because you're only little, aren't you?"

"I'm not _that_ little."

"Umm, you're my baby, yes you are." Too late, Alicia realises what she's said, glances across at Ethan in the passenger seat for a reaction, rather relieved when she doesn't see the hurt there she was afraid she might see. 'Our baby."

"So, I can wear makeup for real when I'm not little anymore?"

"Yep. Yep, that's pretty much it."

"How old is that?"

"Oh, I don't know, twenty-nine, or something. You don't need makeup, do you, you're already beautiful."

"You wear makeup."

"Yep, I do, because I'm older than twenty-nine," Alicia tells her, ignores Ethan and Bea's expressions, both struggling not to giggle. "Totally different once you're over twenty-nine."

"So I can start to wear makeup when it's not for a gym competition when I'm twenty-nine?"

"Do you know what? I think that's a really, really good age," Ethan plays along, twists awkwardly, tries to turn to face Chakra in the back seat behind him, struggles, surrenders, seems to reluctantly accept that his coordination isn't up to it, that it's only going to end badly. "I think Mummy and I can definitely live with you starting to wear makeup when you're twenty-nine."

"You tired?" Alicia asks, glances back at her daughter in the rear-view mirror, eyes closing, curled into Bea's side. "Chakka?"

"No," Chakra insists, but she doesn't move, barely even looks up, body language telling a very different story.

"Oh, you are," Bea tells her. "You totally are, but that's okay, given the time you woke me up this morning."

"What time did she wake you up this morning?"

"Quarter to seven? Something like that. You were wide awake, weren't you, and only on about five hours sleep as well. And _then_ you dragged me around the science museum."

"You liked the science museum."

"I did. You totally wiped the floor with me in the astronomy section though, I had no idea you knew so much about space."

"I don't think I know very much about space. Just… stars, and planets, and their names, and consta… constan…"

"Constellations?"

"Constellations. But I didn't know all the things about gravity. Just that the cosma… cosmonauts…"

"Cosmonauts? I think you mean astronauts, right? Or have you crossed over to the dark side?"

"Miss Yekaterina told us the first people in space were called cosmonauts."

"Oh, well she would have. Cosmonauts are the same thing as astronauts, that's just what… so you know Miss Yekaterina is from a place that doesn't exist anymore called the Soviet Union, right? So in the Soviet Union, people who go into space were called cosmonauts, and everywhere else they were called astronauts."

"Why did they have different names?"

"You're really good at turning everything into a history lesson, aren't you? Well… because a long time ago, countries who believed in something called communism- that's just… it's like a special government, you know how government works, right? Countries like the Soviet Union believed in this thing called communism, and countries like America were a bit scared of communism, so they had this thing called a Cold War, have you heard of that? No? So it just means… they didn't have a proper war with each other, but they didn't like each other very much either. And they had a competition to see who could visit space first."

"Who won?"

"Umm, well, the Space Race or the whole Cold War? I think the Americans won them both, to be honest. Although Miss Yekaterina might give you a different answer, it's probably best not to ask her. So is space your new thing, then? I think they still make you learn Russian if you want to be an astronaut, nowadays, so if you stick with Miss Yekaterina you'll be good to go."

"Maybe. The space part was really cool. But not as interesting as King Arthur and the Celts. Or when you let me watch you pull knives and stuff out of people at work."

"That's my girl. And Mammy still hasn't taken you to Stonehenge, after all those times you must have driven past it?"

"I know, I know, I'm a terrible mother," Alicia agrees, plays along. "I promise I'll take you next time, Chak, okay?"

"Can we go for Summer Solstice? Kerry told me about it, she said you can go there and watch the sun rise, and it's like it would have been when the people who used to live there built it."

"We've actually done that. Ethan and me, it must have been the year before you were born."

It had been around the time she was discharged from counselling the second time, Alicia remembers, suddenly drawn back to another lifetime. She was back at work again, Mrs Beauchamp having argued and bribed and threatened the Nevison board until they agreed to transfer her Future Leaders Fellowship to Holby, she and Ethan were back together and she was newly back from finding herself in Bhutan (upon reflection, perhaps it's not so unclear where Chakra gets it all from, after all, Alicia ponders), they were finally learning to communicate with each other properly, starting again, she was starting to put everything with Eddie behind her at last, for good, this time, and everything had seemed so perfect…

"So we could all go together?" Chakra asks hopefully, tries to lie down across Bea's lap, only to be pushed gently back upright.

"We can think about it, okay?" Alicia tells her, catches Ethan's nervous expression. "That might be a bit much for Ethan, they'll be huge crowds of people there. But I'll take you, if you still want to go in June. We can dress you up like a sixties flower child, or something, you'll fit right in."

"What's a sixties flower child?"

"Your usual go-to look, to be honest. You do realise you can go to sleep if you want to, right?"

"I'm not tired."

"Yeah, except you are," Bea laughs. "You so are. Come on, you don't have to pretend, you can go to sleep if you want to. We'll try not to have too much fun without you, okay?"

"Will you wake me up before you go home?"

"Well, I'm going to have to, aren't I, if you're going to sleep on top of me. Come on then, trouble, you've got about six hours of sleep to catch up on, haven't you? One's better than nothing."

"I'm not trouble," Chakra protests, sleepy, eyes closed.

"Nah, you're right, you're pretty good, aren't you? You going to go to sleep, then? Yeah? Yep, you're already asleep, aren't you?" Bea concludes. "I thought this would happen, she was _far_ too hyper this morning."

It's only then that Alicia glances across to Ethan, finally makes sense of the sadness in his eyes.

She knew this was a terrible idea, this all four of them in the car together thing.

She just hadn't quite narrowed down why it was such a terrible idea until now.

Ethan is watching Bea and Chakra on the back seat with the most heartbreakingly sad look in his eyes, has been the whole time, because it's slowly dawning on him that Bea has a far, far better relationship with his daughter than he does.

And Alicia doesn't know how to fix that.

Not instantly, at least.

"Do you want to see my room?" Chakra asks excitedly, holds Ethan's hand tightly as he limps in through the front door, crutch in his other hand, leaning heavily. "Ethan? My room's upstairs, and I can show you…"

"That might be too many stairs for Ethan, he's only just got in through the door, Chakra," Alicia intervenes. "Maybe later, okay? Why don't you take him into the living room first, yeah? I mean, he'll remember where it is…"

"Okay," Chakra shrugs happily, pushes open the door into the living room. "You can sit wherever you like," she tells him, guiltily gathers up ballet shoes, plastic medieval knight figures, books, discarded socks and several hairbands from the sofa. "Mammy says I need to stop leaving all my stuff everywhere. I know what I can show you," she babbles, rushes off happily towards the kitchen before Alicia can question her.

"I'm sorry," Alicia apologises, waits until Chakra is safely out of earshot, watches, nervous and she doesn't quite know why as Ethan sits down on the sofa, winces, awkward, though mercifully tremor-free. "She's just excited…"

"No, no, she's fine," Ethan insists, though Alicia doesn't miss his tired expression. "She's fine. You finally replaced the sofas, then?"

"Oh, they went when Chakra was a year old, or so. They didn't really work in here, did they?" Alicia agrees. "Looked like they belonged in a consultant's office, or something. I'll go and put the kettle on in a minute, I'll just check what she wants to show you, she's a bit overexcited…"

Chakra reappears in the living room happily, clutching a ball of pale, sand-coloured fluff gently against her chest. "Ethan? This is Guinevere."

"Oh, your… your rabbit?" Ethan tries, suddenly back to being horribly uncertain around her again.

"One of them. I've brought you Guinevere first because she's much calmer, isn't she, Mammy? Guinevere's really chilled out and she'll just let you hold her and be really gentle, Morgana's much more wriggly."

"Wrigglier."

"Wrigglier." Chakra sits down on the sofa next to Ethan, lowers Guinevere the rabbit onto her lap. "You have to really hold onto Morgana and watch her, or she jumps, and she can actually hop really fast. We did that when she was a baby, because we didn't realise, and then we had to shut the kitchen door and chase her for ages to get her back, and she went behind the oven, and we had to give her lots of treats to get her to come out again. She's a… a miniature lop? Mammy?" She waits for Alicia to nod in confirmation. "We got them from my friend Charlotte and her mam Robyn who works with Mammy, Robyn got Charlotte two rabbits for her birthday and she thought they were both girls, but they were actually a boy and a girl and Robyn and Charlotte didn't realise until they had baby rabbits. So Mammy said we could have two of them, because rabbits need friends or they get lonely."

"Oh, I think everyone gets lonely if they don't have friends," Ethan agrees, expression suddenly pensive.

"Do you want to hold her? And then I can go and get Morgana out of their hutch."

"Oh, okay…"

"She's really calm. She'll just sit on your lap as long as you don't scare her." And with that, she transfers Guinevere the rabbit to Ethan's lap, skips off happily back towards the kitchen.

Ethan glances between Alicia and the rabbit sniffing his fingers. "She looks… nervous."

"The rabbit? They always look nervous," Alicia assures him. "I nearly didn't take this one to the vets the other week with her ear infection, Chakra was insisting for days she thought she looked funny, I thought it was just her normal face. The other one's a bit bolder, this one's scared of _everything_."

"I'm suddenly feeling a tremendous sense of responsibility."

"I mean, to be fair, these two are her pride and joy," Alicia teases. "So I'd say she trusts you. Chakra, obviously. I don't think Guinevere trusts anyone except Chakra. Just avoid her face, if you can, last time I tried feeding them, I got nipped about five times."

"This one, or the other one?"

"I have absolutely no idea. Chakra keeps trying to explain to me how to tell them apart, but I'm still not getting it. If you want rid of her, just say…"

"No, it's fine," Ethan insists. "It's fine, Cal and I had guinea pigs when we were about Chakra's age. Well, I did, really, Cal was never all that bothered."

"And did you give them suitably cultured names as well?"

"Mine was Perseus. You know, Greek mythology. Cal's was Gnasher."

"Oh, that's brilliant, that. I think we know were Chakra gets her taste in pet naming from, then. The most cultured I ever got was Sirius the black lab."

"And this is Morgana." Chakra sits back down next to Ethan happily. "Mammy and Auntie Bea can't tell them apart, but it's really easy, you just have to look at their ears. Morgana has these tiny white patches on her ears, look, and her ears are bigger. Guinevere has a white patch on the bottom of her left front paw, but you can only see it if she lets you lift her paws, and she doesn't always like that. So it's better to look at their ears when you want to tell them apart."

"That sounds like a much better idea," Ethan agrees. "Very considerate."

"What does that mean?"

"It means… it means you're very kind, and you think about other people's feelings. Or other animals' feelings. That's a really important thing to do, isn't it?"

Slowly, quietly, Alicia tiptoes away into the kitchen, fills the kettle with water, leaves them to it.

All of a sudden, she's certain that the two of them are going to manage to establish a relationship with one another just fine.

Even so, however, it's with considerable trepidation that she ventures back downstairs several hours later, hovers in the doorway for a moment, gathering courage, before she enters into the living room.

It's dark, now, the gentle sound of rain thudding against the windows louder than Alicia remembers it being before she headed upstairs with Chakra, and it takes Alicia a moment to realise that he's turned the TV volume down to next to nothing.

"Is this alright?" Ethan worries. "Sorry, if you think it's still too loud… I'd hate to keep her awake…"

"What? Oh, she's fine," Alicia assures him quickly. "She's used to more noise than this, she's fine. Do you… do you want to come up and say goodnight to her?" she offers, suddenly overcome with a strange, inexplicable shyness. "I mean, I can't promise you won't be seeing her before morning, the way she's been lately, she might come and gate crash us sometime around one am. But, you know, you have to stick to a routine with them, don't you, otherwise there's no hope. And if she does come into ours in the middle of the night, by the way, I can take her out, I can go and sleep in her bed, or something, or the spare room, if you aren't comfortable with…"

"It's fine," Ethan insists. "It's fine, I don't mind. If you want to just put her in your bed, if you think that would be easier…"

"Our bed," Alicia corrects him gently. "And thank you, but no, I don't. I mean, I'd rather do that, if she's going to wake up having a hysterical meltdown in her own bed, and I think the chances of that are still pretty high, to be honest. But I'm never going to get her back sleeping the whole night in her own bed, am I, if I don't persevere with it. And she's cute and everything, but I don't think I really want to be sharing a bed with her every night forever. And she's in her own bed now, anyway, I just need to go and tell her that her reading time's up and turn the lights out and stuff."

"I…" Ethan stammers, nervous. "I don't know, I mean… I wouldn't know what to do…"

"Of course you would, don't be silly. You can just copy me, okay? And she's still shattered after her ridiculously late night and waking Bea up at the crack of dawn this morning, she's not going to put up much of a resistance."

"Is she…" Ethan fidgets awkwardly, can't quite meet Alicia's eyes. "Is she in the room next to yours?"

"No, she's on the second floor," Alicia tells him, everything slowly clicking into place and she just hopes she's wrong. "The room that used to be Ruby's, after I finally got around to sorting out the damp in there and she moved out the one that's basically a gloried cupboard. It's just easier that way, if I'm on nights and coming in and out at weird hours I know I'm not going to wake her up."

"I…" Ethan pales considerably. "I don't know…"

"You do realise you're going to have to do the stairs later anyway, right? It'll be fine, Ethan…"

"That's only one flight though. Last time…"

"And I think we both know last time was exceptional," Alicia tells him firmly, can't let this consume him, not again, because that's what it's about, she's sure of it. "It was an accident, Ethan. I know it was an accident, I know you didn't mean to push me…"

"I was just trying to…"

"I know," Alicia sighs. "I know, it's okay. You don't have to go over it all again, Ethan, I already know. And it's not going to happen again, is it…"

"It could." Ethan's voice is shaking now, eyes filling with tears. "It's more likely to happen again now, if anything…"

"No, it isn't. Because we both know what we're dealing with properly this time. It's different," Alicia insists. "You aren't going to hurt me, okay? It'll be fine. I'll help you up the stairs, if…"

"No. No," Ethan shakes his head firmly. "No, I… okay. Okay, I'll come up and say goodnight to her, you're right. If you're sure she won't mind…"

"Of course she won't," Alicia murmurs, squeezes his hand. "You're her dad, Ethan, of course she won't mind."

"Okay. But you're going upstairs first." It's clear from Ethan's tone that he's not compromising, not over this. "You go up first, I'll follow you."

"But…"

"Please, Alicia," Ethan pleads. "I know you're safe, that way, I can't…"

"It isn't going to happen again, Ethan, it was a freak accident…"

"But we don't know that," Ethan insists. "We don't know that, I've… I've avoided stairs," he admits. "Since that day, I've… I've avoided stairs, wherever I can."

"All the more reason to…"

"Alicia," Ethan says firmly. "We do it this way. Please."

There's no point pushing it, Alicia realises. Not just yet.

This goes too deep for that.

"Okay," she tells him, does her best to keep the concern from her voice. "Okay, I… I guess I'll see you upstairs, then."


	42. Chapter 42

**This is the second chapter of a double upload- please make sure you read the previous one first or chapter 43 will make no sense!**

 **Chapter 42**

 **29 Weeks**

"I've already told you," Alicia protests, glares aggressively at the obstetrician, doesn't seem to even notice Bea's placing her hands gently on her shoulders in an attempt to comfort her. "I'm not having a caesarean. You can say whatever you like, I don't care, I know I don't have to sign the consent form."

"No, you don't," the obstetrician sighs wearily- and she must have told them her name at the start of all this, but Bea can't remember for the life of her, too busy trying to hold Alicia together. "But please, Alicia, try to think about it objectively. Exomphalos deliveries often end in emergency caesareans anyway…"

"But not always…"

"No, but if we do have to resort to an emergency caesarean, you know as well as I do the risks of foetal distress are…"

"Yes, I know the statistics," Alicia snaps. "It's my decision. She's still measuring two weeks too small, if I have a caesarean at thirty-six weeks she's going to be the size of a thirty-four weeker, that's a completely different scenario, then we're talking Neonates, not SCBU. And you know that," she accuses the obstetrician and Sorcha the midwife. "You know that, or you would have someone from SCBU in here, not Mr Barling. I've worked in both, for god's sake, I know the difference an extra couple of weeks can make at that stage…"

"And you've also seen first-hand that the vast majority of babies born at thirty-four weeks thrive in NICU," Mr Barling reminds her gently. "I know you have, because I supervised your NICU rotation. Even with exomphalos…"

"There could be other complications we won't know about until she's born, she could be…"

"You have to trust us, Alicia," Mr Barling tries. "Mrs Beauchamp explained that I'll be your baby's consultant, whatever happens, didn't she? I've seen your scans, as far as I can tell at this stage, it looks like a relatively straightforward repair. I'll assess her post-delivery, ideally, if she's stable, we'll hold off surgery for the first few hours…"

"I know what you're doing, you're trying to make me feel more in control. But that isn't dependent on whether or not I consent to a caesarean…"

"Like we said, this is about minimising foetal distress. If we have to take her straight through to surgery, it's going to be far more problematic if…"

"Don't," Alicia shudders, and it's so clear to Bea from the dark look in her eyes that she's thought of this already, that perhaps she's thought of nothing else all day, in anticipation of this. "Please, just don't. But you can… you can definitely operate on her here? You're not going to transfer her to GOSH, or…"

"I don't see any reason to. I've done exomphalos repairs before, I don't see any reason we wouldn't be able to keep her here. I'm guessing you'll have looked into this already, it'll be either a full repair straight away or a partial repair over the first week, I'll assess her on delivery, we'll take it from there."

"But you'll… you'll let me know, before you take her into surgery you'll let me know…"

"I'll make sure you're kept updated, yes."

"But I won't be able to see her," Alicia panics. "If I have a caesarean I won't be able to see her, she'd be by herself…."

"No, she wouldn't," Bea tries. "She wouldn't, Leesh. Between me and Ruby and your mam, we can make sure she's not in NICU by herself, okay? I'll even use my annual leave if I have to…"

"You don't have to do that, Bea…"

"I know," Bea tells her firmly. "I know, but I want to. Her being on her own is the last thing you need to worry about."

Hell, she'll book all her annual leave in one block for mid-May in preparation if it convinces Alicia to listen.

"I'm still not consenting," Alicia warns, and Bea suspects she's suddenly aware of the hopeful looks being shot in her direction across the table. "If you think that's it, you're persuaded me, you can think again. There's no real evidence to support not even attempting natural delivery…"

"You don't want pain relief," Sorcha the midwife realises. "Is that what this is about…"

"I don't want _anything_ that's going to put me at anyone else's mercy," Alicia retorts, voice trembling. "I want as few people in the room as possible, I want to be in control, I don't want anyone touching me…"

It's like some kind of impending nightmare for her, Bea realises grimly, curses herself for not seeing it before. It's inevitable, a total necessity, absolutely nothing that can be done about it, and yet already Alicia must be painfully aware that however it happens, the whole process of giving birth is going to bring up memories of Eddie, send her straight back into flashback territory, she must know that it's all too common for rape victims to struggle with labour, but it's so horribly clear that she's built up any kind of medical intervention in her head to be even worse.

Bea can't really blame her, that's the worst of it.

Not after Eddie.

How can any of them reassure her, convince her that she's nothing to fear from a caesarean, from placing her control and her trust in a medical professional when to her, now, being a doctor and the duty of care that comes with it is something that can all-too-easily be broken?

"Is it worth considering inducing her?" Bea finds herself asking, completely out of her depth, certain she's going to be told exactly why induction isn't an option in just a matter of moments, but she can't just stand by and watch Alicia become more and more distressed, she has to try something. "You could induce her at thirty-six weeks, then at least she goes into labour here, she can be monitored, if it comes to it you can go down the emergency caesarean route, but at least she'll have been monitored throughout…"

"We can consider it," Sorcha agrees reluctantly. "Dependent on baby's positioning, she's been breech on all of her scans so far…"

"And breech plus exomphalos is a recipe for disaster, and you don't think there's a chance in hell she's going to turn because I'm shit at being pregnant and I can't maintain normal fluid levels for more than five minutes…"

"No one's saying that, Alicia…"

"No, but that's what you think."

"We haven't done your physical yet," Bea reminds her gently, determined to keep Alicia calm, not for the first time wishing she'd ignored her protests and quietly requested a different midwife seven weeks ago, because there's surely no hope for Alicia and Sorcha's relationship now, not at this point. "Let's not jump to conclusions, she might have…"

"She hasn't." Alicia shakes her head, expression a mixture of despair and panic and denial and fear all at once. "She hasn't turned, I know she hasn't."

"We'll have to do a physical exam, once we're done here, and we'll take it from there," Sorcha sighs, visibly exasperated, and Bea tries her hardest not to resent her for it, tries to remind herself that Alicia has most likely been every midwife's worst nightmare over the last seven weeks. "You know as well as we do, Alicia, everything else aside, we'd be referring you for a caesarean anyway with a breech baby smaller than average. It really isn't the end of the world…"

"I can't have a caesarean," Alicia whispers, cheeks tear-stained out of nowhere. "I can't do it, I can't…"

"And we're going to try and make sure it doesn't come to that," Bea tries, holds Alicia's hands tightly, ignores the midwife's raised eyebrows. "But you might not have a choice, and I know that scares you, but I'll be there, if you want me to be, and I promise no one is going to hurt you on my watch. Okay? Whatever happens, everything's going to be fine. You're going to be fine. I can stay with you, we can get Ruby and your parents to take it in turns with your baby, or your mam would stay with you if you'd prefer. Whatever makes you feel safe. But you don't have to be left alone at any point," she promises. "You wouldn't if Ethan was here, if you wanted him to stay with you, so we can do that. Nobody's going to take advantage of you because no one's going to get the opportunity to."

"I don't want her left by herself…"

"Hey, are you listening?" Bea teases gently. "Me, Ruby, and your mam and dad, between us we can make sure someone's with both of you while you're recovering. Okay? If it comes to that and you end up having a caesarean. You choose who you want with you and who you want with your baby, and we'll do it. And then we'll get you up to NICU to see her as soon as we possibly can. It'll be fine."

"Can you…" Alicia glances down at the floor for a moment, nervously, pauses, and then she looks up again and all of a sudden, her eyes are pleading with her. "Can you stay with me? However I end up having to do it? I… I'd ask Mam but she… she doesn't get it, does she, she's just going to think she's helping and end up making me feel more uncomfortable…"

"Of course I will," Bea tells her, her heart warming in spite of everything, so unexpected and completely touched. "If that's what you want, of course I'll be there. Whatever you need, okay? We can let Mrs Beauchamp know once we're done here, make sure I can get away from this place when I need to. It'll all be okay. I'm not doing the whale music, though," she warns, desperately trying to make Alicia smile. "If you want the whale music, you're on your own."

Alicia shakes her head, the faintest trace of a smile visible in her features. "I am going nowhere near any of that stuff. I don't want any of that, I don't want any drugs, I…"

"This is your first baby," Sorcha reminds her, tone a little condescending now. "You might change your mind, if we let you go into labour…"

"No, I won't!" Alicia snaps, frustrated. "I don't want anything that's going to make me feel out of control, I'm not doing it!"

"Lots of women struggle with labour, after sexual assault…"

"Do you think I don't know that? I'm not stupid, I've seen it all before, for god's sake! I'm not saying I think I'm going to breeze through labour flashback free, I'm saying I _know_ a caesarean is going to be ten times worse, I know that because I've had pain relief since… since it happened, it makes it so much worse if I feel like I'm not in control…"

"And I understand that, but if your baby's still breech in a few weeks, with exomphalos…"

Bea glances between Sorcha and the obstetrician hesitantly. "Could you try an ECV?"

Sorcha raises her eyebrows. "Do you think she's going to let you touch her for long enough to attempt an ECV? Because she certainly isn't going to let me try, is she…"

"I am here!" Alicia protests, and there's anger in her tone now, but it's mixed in with a far greater amount of ever-building panic.

"We're sorry, lovely." Bea murmurs, hugs her gently, feels helpless all over again and she hates it, because it's so horribly clear Alicia is struggling and she just wants to make it better for her but there's nothing she can do, no magic wand she can wave to take her anxiety away. "I know this is shit, I'm sorry."

She's not doing all of the apologising for Sorcha, not making it that easy for her.

"We're going to make this as easy as we possibly can for you, sweetheart, okay?" Bea sighs. "If you think you could bear an ECV…"

"I…" Alicia trails off, shudders, shakes her head. "I want to, I just don't think… I know it would be better than a caesarean, I just don't know if I can… but then I don't know if I can do that, either…" She closes her eyes, expression one of total despair. "I can't do any of this, I'm just useless…"

"You don't have to make a decision now, Alicia," the obstetrician tries. "We can leave it another few weeks or so, we'll give you some time to think."

"She's not going to turn on her own though, is she…"

"It's less likely with oligohydramnios, yes, but it wouldn't be completely unheard of. So, do we have a plan, now?" the obstetrician asks carefully. "Alicia? We'll give you some time to think about whether you'd like us to attempt an ECV, I'll book you in for another appointment in three weeks' time and we'll decide how to proceed then, okay? You don't need to make a decision now. But I do need you to try to get your head around a caesarean being a real possibility. I know that isn't what you want, but it may well come to that."

"Do you have anything else you'd like to ask, Alicia?" Mr Barling asks quietly.

"No, I think…" Alicia shakes her head, pales a little. "I think I already know too much about neonates. I can't… I know it's going to happen, I'm not in denial or anything, I just can't think about Sh… her being in there…"

"Okay. But if you do think of anything, you know where I am, you can come and find me anytime. I mean it."

"Thank you," Alicia whispers. "I'm sorry. I know I'm being ridiculous…"

"You're not being ridiculous at all," Bea tells her firmly, glares at Sorcha, Mr Barling and the obstetrician across the table, daring them to challenge her. "How you're feeling is completely understandable, given… you know. Given everything."

"Are we finished?" Alicia pleads shakily, and Bea's heart sinks.

She knew this was a terrible idea, right from the start. But Alicia had insisted, booked herself in with orthopaedics to be discharged from them right before her midwife appointment, knowing full well she was going to be ambushed by Mr Barling and the obstetrician, the morning after her counselling session, muttered something about getting it all out of the way in one go, and six months into her pregnancy, Bea knows better than to argue with her when she's hormonal and upset.

"We're finished with this, yes." Sorcha smiles gratefully as Mr Barling and the obstetrician head for the door. "I still need to do your twenty-eight-week check-up. Better late than ever. So if you could come and lie on the examination table for me, please…"

Alicia rolls her eyes like a stubborn child, reluctantly obliges. "There's absolutely no point, I can tell you now she's still going to be breech and she's still going to be measuring…"

"And I'm sure you're right, but it's standard procedure, so you're going to have to humour me."

It's the ultimate personality clash at this point, Bea ponders to herself absentmindedly, wonders if there's anything that can be done to repair their relationship.

As things stand, she can't see Alicia allowing Sorcha anywhere near the delivery room, and that's if she even makes it to that stage.

"Do you want me to do your examination?" Bea offers, more confirming to the midwife that's what is going to happen than anything else, doesn't need to wait for Alicia's wary nod in confirmation. "Okay. Okay, relax for me, then."

"I can't!" Alicia protests feebly. "I can't…"

"Yes, you can. I'm not going to hurt you, lovely. I promise I'm not going to hurt you, but you're going to make this so much worse for yourself if you don't try and relax. You're fine. Everything's going to be fine, you've only got to do a couple more of these," Bea reminds her. "And then it'll be over, and you'll have a gorgeous baby girl, and it'll all be worth it. Who you have totally named, by the way. Don't think I didn't notice."

"Maybe." Alicia lifts her top reluctantly, though Bea notes with relief that at least she's no longer shaking. "But even if I have, I'm so not telling you, you'll only try to put me off it."

"You so have. So it begins with Sh, then?" Bea teases. "Can't be Charlotte, I'm guessing, Robyn's already got a Charlotte. Cheryl?"

"Oh my god, do you think I'm going to call my baby Cheryl just because I'm from Newcastle?"

"I never said that. I'm going to get it over with, okay? You're fine, everything's fine. Relax for me, Leesh." She grimaces involuntarily as she glances down, takes in the angry inflammation, discharge surrounding the metal bar she hadn't known Alicia had until all of this, until she had to practically take over her midwife appointments in a desperate bid to calm her. "You do realise your belly button piercing is infected?"

Alicia closes her eyes, weary. "Elle mentioned it, yes, when I dislocated my elbow again…"

"That was two weeks ago," Bea points out. "Have you not…"

"No, I haven't, I… I still don't want to look," Alicia admits quietly, and Bea hopes with everything she has left that Sorcha isn't taking notes. "It's getting better, since the counselling, I'd just… I'd just rather carry on avoiding it, if I can. Elle was fussing about _everything_ …"

"She wasn't about this, it looks disgusting. Sorry, but it does. It looks painful, how have you not…"

"Because a dislocated elbow is ten times worse, and I've got enough to worry about with a poorly baby and a boyfriend with Huntington's in the middle of some kind of breakdown without thinking about…"

"Hey, let me stop you right there," Bea interrupts her firmly, worry building within her again. 'You're just as important. Okay? You need to be looking after yourself, too."

"This is why I just want the pregnancy part to be over, I'm shit at…"

"No, no, no, no, no, listen to me, lovely. Cheryl needs you to be looking after yourself after she's born as well, doesn't she? You're her mammy, she doesn't need anyone else, she just needs you."

"I am _not_ calling her Cheryl."

"Shannon, then? No? No, okay, fine, I'll get it out of you eventually. But she needs you to realise that you matter just as much as her and Ethan. She needs you to be looking after yourself, not running yourself into the ground, even if it's with the best of intentions. So will you please start believing that? Preferably sooner rather than later. And _please_ take that piercing out, before it gets any worse."

"I told her to do that weeks ago," Sorcha interrupts. "We always recommend…"

Bea sighs. "Not helping." Now isn't the time, she decides, to point out that this latest development is causing her to question whether Alicia is really making progress after all, whether any part of her has in fact managed to get over the crippling guilt over Ethan, over the baby, over all of it, as a result of the counselling, or whether actually, she's just become better at hiding it all.

But no, it's not, she tells herself, it's not that bad. Things have got better lately; she and Ruby have finally managed to persuade Alicia to announce her pregnancy, at the very least, haven't had to practically force her to eat and sleep and generally look after herself, as though she's a child, for a few weeks now. Not since her distraught confession back when she came down with the flu virus still circling its way around the hospital, not since Mrs Beauchamp threatened and manipulated with HR until they fast-tracked her to the front of the counselling queue.

She's just unhappy, Bea concludes wearily. Alicia is just unhappy, perhaps still a little in denial about it all, and she doesn't know what to do about that.

"Can we just get it over with?" Alicia pleads. "I just want to get out of here…"

"Okay. You ready?"

She nods, but it's painfully clear from the look of complete and utter dread in her eyes that she's anything but, her desire to get away from the hospital as quickly as possible is simply stronger in that moment.

"Alright. Keep looking at me, lovely. You're fine, just keep looking at me, keep breathing. I'm going to be thirty seconds, tops, okay?"

Alicia nods weakly, eyes fixed on Bea's face as though her life depends upon it. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, you're going to have practically completed another obstetrics placement, by the time I've had this baby…"

"Now you mention it, I should get onto Mrs Beauchamp, see if she'll add it to my portfolio," Bea teases, trails off for a moment, concentrating. Okay. Okay, we're done. That wasn't anywhere near as bad as last time, right? Still breech," she confirms apologetically, glances between Alicia and the midwife. "She's measuring at twenty-four, that's what we'd expect based on her last examination, right?"

Alicia closes her eyes, almost as though she's zoning out, disassociating, and Bea vows not to let her disappear up to her room the moment they arrive home.

"Are we done?" she asks at last.

"Almost. I'm going to need a urine sample from you, to rule out…"

"I know."

"Of course you do," Sorcha sighs, holds out the sample container. "Toilets are along the corridor to the left."

She waits until Alicia has left the room, door safely closed behind her, before she turns back to Bea. "Do you think she's bonded with this baby? You live with her, don't you, do you think she's in denial? Do you think she's…"

"I think she's bonded with her baby perfectly fine," Bea responds coolly, suddenly overcome with an overwhelming need to shut this down, _now_ , before it's allowed to go any further. "I think she's had a ridiculously stressful pregnancy one way and another, her boyfriend's just walked out on her and her baby after dropping a massive bombshell on her, no one gets over that overnight. She still loves him, she's desperately worried about him, but there's nothing she can do because he's made it very clear he doesn't want to hear from her. She's got a lot better, yes, but I think it's pretty clear she's still struggling mentally, and can you blame her? But there is absolutely no doubt in my mind she loves this baby. Do you really think she would have put herself through genetic testing if she didn't? I think she's been coping with an awful situation the best way she knew how and she hugely underestimated the impact it would have on her mental state. And I think- I know- that she's going to be a brilliant mam, and she has all the support in the world. So there is absolutely no point us having this conversation."

 **Once again, I am so sorry for the delay, you would have had an update sooner but I've had a lot of difficult off the internet stuff in the last couple of weeks, ending in a bit of a mental breakdown this weekend. I was writing these chapters simultaneously which didn't help, so I've given you them both in one go to say sorry! I PROMISE I will be faster next time, and I have another chapter of Atoms and My Heart Was Home Again coming up for you too :)**

 **A special thank you this time to 20blueroses, BrightWrites, guest and Lewisek18 for your reviews, they are always massively appreciated but over the last couple of weeks particularly they have made me feel so much better. You are all brilliant and it is honestly such a pleasure to write for you.**

 **Reviews would be wonderful- and you are allowed to critique, too!**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	43. Chapter 43

**Chapter 43**

A small hand taps against her shoulder, gently, at first, then increasingly frantic.

"Mammy? Mammy?"

Alicia groans internally.

Selfishly, she wants to ignore her, pretend she's still asleep, just for a moment. She hasn't been asleep for long, she suspects, perhaps only just drifted off, still reasonably alert and aware that she's curled up in Ethan's arms, too comfortable to move, just wants to savour this moment because although it's happened a few times now since they've found each other again, this was everything she wanted and everything she couldn't have for such a long time and she doesn't want to pull away from his embrace, not just yet.

And then she comes to her senses, maternal instinct kicking in and she can't ignore her, couldn't even if she wanted to because she's her baby girl and she's everything, she's hers, her whole purpose, and she can't let her suffer, not even for a moment.

"Hey, it's okay, Chakka." Slowly, careful not to wake him, she wriggles her way out of Ethan's arms, pulls back the covers, stretches out. "Come on. You can come in with Ethan and me tonight, okay?"

"Mammy…" Chakra whispers in quiet protest, doesn't move, and Alicia can't make out her expression in the darkness.

"Do you not want to with Ethan here?" Alicia asks, wide awake again now, pushes herself up into a seated position. "Because that's fine, I can… well, your bed might be a bit of a squeeze for both of us together, but we can go in the spare room…"

"Mammy, I'm sorry," Chakra whispers. "I'm really sorry…"

Only then does Alicia take in the strong stench of vomit and urine.

"Oh, okay," she realises, clambers off the bed, places her hands on Chakra's shoulders to guide her gently out of her bedroom onto the landing, up the stairs, only hopes they haven't disturbed Ethan with all the commotion. "It's okay, sweetheart, it doesn't matter. You've got nothing to be sorry for, Chakka, these things happen, don't they? I'm not angry. It's all fine. Where were you sick?"

"In the bathroom."

"There you go, see, it could have been so much worse, couldn't it? After you wet the bed?"

Chakra nods, flushes, embarrassed. "I'm sorry…"

"No, no, no, no, no, you don't need to apologise, Chak. It's okay. It doesn't matter, it's going to take me five minutes to sort it and then it'll all be forgotten, alright? You've got nothing to apologise for. I'm sorry you're so upset. Alright." She turns on the dimmer switch in her daughter's bedroom, rummages through the drawers, offers out clean pyjamas. "So you're going to go and clean up, and I'm going to sort your bed, and everything's going to be fine, okay? Good girl."

It's only after she's heard the click of the bathroom door that Alicia sighs to herself, greatly regrets the day she decided Chakra was grown up enough not to need a mattress protector any longer.

"Will you stop behaving like you're in trouble?" Alicia asks as Chakra tiptoes back into the room a few minutes later, aiming at keeping her tone light, teasing, but she's far too tired and it doesn't come out quite the way she intended. "I'm not angry, Chakka. You're not in trouble, we can forget all about it, okay? It's fine. Everything's fine. I'm going to leave this overnight and then I'll finish sorting it out in the morning, okay? And then it'll be like nothing happened. Do you still feel sick?" she murmurs, presses the back of her hand to Chakra's forehead. "Chakra?"

"Like, I feel sick, but I don't think I'm going to be sick."

"Okay. Okay, I think you're still just a bit upset, aren't you?" Alicia sighs. "That's alright. Shall we go and get you some water, then? Yeah? That might help. Am I carrying you?"

Chakra nods, curls into Alicia's chest as she lifts her up, plays with her hair. "Do I have to go to school when you go in tomorrow?"

"Is that what you're worried about?" Alicia realises as she carries her down the stairs. "No, you don't, sweetheart. Ethan and I are just going in to have a meeting with Mrs Gainham and Mrs Davies and explain to them that you aren't coming back to school after last week, that's all that's happening. You don't need to be there, Nana's going to come over and spend the morning with you while we're gone, okay, and you can work on your King Arthur project with her, can't you? Or you can do maths, or you can read, you can do whatever you want as long as it counts as educational, okay? But you definitely don't have to go to school. I promise. I'm not sending you back there. I'm going to put you down, okay, there's only so much I can do one-handed."

"Am I too heavy?"

"You are anything but too heavy, sweetheart, I just can't get you a glass of water while I'm holding onto you, can I?" Alicia sets her down, opens the cupboard above the sink, turns on the tap. "Did you have a bad dream? No? Or do you not want to talk about it?"

"I don't think so." Chakra shrugs, reaches out for the glass of water, and Alicia can't decide if she's deliberately shutting her out or she's just overtired. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Drink it slowly, Chak, you're only going to feel worse again if you drink it really quickly. Are you sure there isn't anything I can do to make it better?" she tries, brushes Chakra's hair over her shoulders absentmindedly. "No? Okay. Shall we get you back to bed, then, before you've woken up properly?"

"I _am_ awake, Mammy," Chakra protests, though she blinks sleepily, leans back into Alicia's side.

"Alright, you are awake, then. But we're going to get you back to bed now, okay? Or you're going to be really tired tomorrow."

"Can I stay with you?" Chakra pleads. "I don't want to go in the spare room, I want to stay with you…"

"Then you can stay with me, okay? That's fine. You don't have to go in on your own if you don't want to, you can come in with Ethan and me, or we can sleep in the spare room together," Alicia promises, combs her fingers through her hair, knows she should stop fussing over her, treating her like she's a baby, but it's so, so difficult not to when she's like this. "Are you happy in my room, if Ethan's in there too? You are? Okay. Come on, then, but you have to promise me that it's me you're going to put your freezing cold feet up against, alright?"

"Do we have to go up now?" Chakra asks slowly. "Can we just…"

"You want to just sit down here for a bit?" Alicia realises. "We can do that. Shall we go and sit in the living room? Yeah? Come on, darling." Hands on her daughter's shoulders, she guides her gently back up the brief flight of steps from the kitchen (with the benefit of hindsight, this house was a terrible idea, if only she'd known back when she bought this house that she and Ethan would be together a few months later, if only she'd known he had Huntington's, she never would have bought a house with so many stairs), along the hallway, curls up on the sofa in the living room, holds out her arms, pulls Chakra onto her lap.

"Aren't I too heavy?"

"Umm, no, you're not, don't be so silly. You're only little, you physically can't be too heavy. Not possible. You're my beautiful baby girl and I love you so, so much. You know you can tell me anything, right?" Alicia murmurs, rests her chin gently against the crown of Chakra's head. "Anything. Anything that's worrying you, anything you're upset about, you only have to tell me and I'll fix it, okay? I promise."

Chakra curls into her chest wearily, blinks anxiously. "What if you can't?"

"Hey, I'm your mam, that means I can fix everything," Alicia tells her firmly. "Okay? Well, maybe not everything, I can't, you know, cure cancer, or something. But everything you might be worried about, I can fix, because we just need to make you feel less stressed about everything, don't we? And then everything will seem better. You're far, far too young to start stressing about everything, aren't you, you've got, like, your whole adult life to do that. Or preferably to not do that, because I'm determined to teach you not to take after Ethan on that one."

It's only as she's speaking those words that it occurs to her if Chakra brings up Ethan's illness, she's well and truly exposed, because she most definitely can't fix everything.

But she desperately needs Chakra to believe she can, and is she starting to approach the age now at which she's too old to truly believe that her mam can fix everything? She can't be, surely? Surely at not quite eight, she still has at least a few years left in which she's innocent enough to believe Alicia can fix everything?

"I…" Chakra tries, and it's almost as though she can't bear to put whatever she's thinking into words. "I… I think…" She shakes her head, closes her eyes, surrenders.

"You think what?" Alicia presses gently. "Chakra? You can tell me. You don't have to tell me, sweetheart, but I'd really like you to. And it might make you feel better, do you think? Maybe? Sometimes it doesn't seem so bad when you talk about it."

Chakra fidgets awkwardly, hesitates. "Is there something wrong with me?"

There's something about the uncertainty in her expression that's almost enough to shatter Alicia's heart into pieces.

"There's absolutely nothing wrong with you," Alicia tells her firmly. "I promise. Not the way you mean. You're perfect exactly as you are, there's nothing wrong with you at all. "I wouldn't lie to you, would I? You know that, right? I love you. And when we… listen, I don't want you to ever think there's something wrong with you, okay? You're just struggling a bit at the moment, aren't you, and that's absolutely fine, it's normal, it's completely normal to feel how you're feeling. Lots of people go through it. But it isn't healthy, and it's going to make you really ill and unhappy, isn't it? I think it already is. But I don't ever want you to think there's anything wrong with you, not the way you mean. You promise? I think you're beautiful…"

"Don't you have to think that, though, because you're my mam?"

"Nope, nobody ever mentioned anything about having to think that. It definitely doesn't say that in the parenting books. I'm not telling you that because I think I have to, I'm telling you because I mean it. We need to build your self-esteem up a bit, don't we? Do you know what that means?"

"Is it like confidence?" Chakra asks sleepily.

"Kind of, that's a really, really good guess. It just means, like… it's like your self-worth. Does that make sense? It means… when we give you compliments, I'm not sure you always believe us, do you? And I'd really, really like you to try to. Do you think you can do that for me?"

Chakra shrugs, flushes. "Maybe."

"I'll have to take maybe, then, won't I? Maybe's okay. It would make me really happy if we could make maybe into definitely, though."

"You kept your promise," Chakra contemplates, closes her eyes.

"Hmm?"

"You haven't bought any more cigarettes." Chakra hesitates for a moment, frowning. "Or if you have, I haven't seen them."

"I promise I haven't bought any more cigarettes, okay? I promise. And I'm not going to. And you saw me throw away the ones I had left, didn't you, so that's it. I'm not smoking anymore. And I didn't think anyone would ever get me to quit completely, I didn't even do that for Ethan, so you should feel really, really special. And if I ever catch you smoking, you are going to be in _so_ much trouble. But I think you're too sensible for that, aren't you?"

 _And if you could carry on being too sensible for that, and binge drinking, and unsuitable boyfriends, and drugs, and staying out all night without telling me, and everything else I got up to behind my mam and dad's backs, that would be even better,_ Alicia adds internally.

"Mammy?" Chakra asks carefully, tilts her head, blinks the way she does when she wants something.

"Hmm?"

"You know I'm going to be eight in like... two weeks?"

"Yep," Alicia plays along, pulls her gently back into her chest, wraps her arms around her middle, chin resting on the crown of her head. "What do you want?"

"Is eight old enough to have my ears pierced?"

She pauses for a moment, contemplates. "I think so. You're going to have to ask Ethan as well, though, you need his permission too, okay? But I'm fine with it if he is. But one in each ear, that's it until you're a bit older. Like Auntie Ruby's, not like mine."

Chakra nods. "Do you have to work tomorrow?"

"No, I don't have to work tomorrow. Not until Friday night now," Alicia tells her quietly, suddenly conscious that while she's calmed down considerably, she's no longer sounding quite as close to sleep as she did before. "Ethan and I are going to go and have this meeting we need to have at your school, and then we have the whole day together, yeah? And you won't even know I'm gone on Friday night, will you? I'll still be here when you go to sleep, and then I'm going to have to come home and sleep, but I'll be awake by the time you get back from gym. Speaking of which, shall we go back to bed?" she tries, exhaustion hitting her out of nowhere, as though now she's finally satisfied she's managed to calm Chakra down she's tuning back into her own fatigue, drained, forcing herself to stay awake, just wants to sleep. "You must be tired, it's really, really late for you, isn't it? Yeah? Shall we go back upstairs, then?"

"Mammy?" Chakra murmurs sleepily, holds Alicia's hand on the stairs. "I don't know where I put Elephant."

"I do. You had her when you came into my room, do you remember? You've probably just left her on my bed. We'll find her in a minute, okay? You'll see. But we're going to have to be really, really quiet, aren't we, because Ethan's asleep and we don't want to wake him up, do we? Come on, darling." Slowly, carefully, she pushes open the door to her bedroom, ushers Chakra in, gently pushes her into the middle of the bed, climbs in after her, locates the small, fluffy item on her pillow, presses it into Chakra's hands.

"Sleep, okay?" she whispers, pulls Chakra against her chest, suddenly worried that she's going to sprawl out across the other side of the bed she's used to having to herself in the middle of the night, invading Ethan's space. "Everything's fine. I'm right here, you can wake me up if you need me again, alright?"

"Mammy?" Chakra asks anxiously, rearranges her breakfast with her spoon. "So you're… you and Ethan are going to my school, and then you're coming back?"

"Yep, that's right," Alicia reassures her, brushes her hair over her shoulder. "We're coming straight back. How on earth have you managed to get your hair so knotty already? I brushed it for you, what, ten minutes ago…"

"I was showing Ethan how to do a front walkover, while you were making breakfast. And a scorpion. And a Mexican stand, but they were all rubbish." Chakra screw up her face, thoroughly unsatisfied.

"I didn't think they were all rubbish," Ethan offers. "I think you're amazing, you must have bones made out of rubber."

Chakra shakes her head, pulls a face as Alicia approaches her with a hairbrush. "They were." She turns, glances behind her at Alicia pleadingly. "I still can't balance properly, and Miss Yekaterina's going to be really angry with me."

"No, she isn't," Alicia soothes. "I'm not going to let her be angry with you, don't be silly. You can do it, I know you can, I've sat through your gym competitions, haven't I? You have amazing balance…"

"That's exactly why Miss Yekaterina's going to be angry with me," Chakra protests. "Because I used to be able to do it, and now I can't…"

"Yes, you can," Alicia tells her firmly. "You can, Chakra, I know you can. You've just lost your confidence, that's all. It happens to all of us sometimes. And do you know what the best thing you can do is? You just need to keep trying, and you need to stop worrying that you've forgotten how to do it, and then you'll be able to balance properly and it'll be like nothing ever happened."

"You don't understand, Mammy…"

"Yes, I do. Believe me, I do. I completely lost my confidence with the whole being a doctor thing when I first started working at the ED, I was so convinced I couldn't do it that I quit my second year as a junior doctor and I ran away to Thailand. And then I finally came back, and I realised I could do it after all, it just took a while for me to believe in myself again. And it's going to be exactly the same for you, you _can_ do it. Except I'm not going to let you give up and run away, because you're better than that. So I'll talk to Miss Yekaterina, okay? You've got absolutely nothing to worry about. You just need to put absolutely no pressure on yourself, and then you'll be doing, I don't know, thirty-two pirouettes before you know it, or something."

"Fouettes."

"Hmm?"

"You mean fouettes," Chakra tells her casually. "Like in Swan Lake, right? Odette does thirty-two fouettes, Mammy. Not pirouettes. I don't think anybody can do thirty-two pirouettes."

"No? Well, that's me told, then. You're far too clever for me, aren't you?" Alicia distracts her, teases the last of the knots out of her hair. "I think you're going to be like Ethan when you're older, you're going to keep absorbing all sorts of strange bits of information, and then you'll be everyone's favourite person at a pub quiz."

"What's a pub quiz?"

"It's like a special kind of test, Chakra," Ethan offers. "It's… grown-ups do them in the pub sometimes, it's like a test you do in teams, for fun, and it's lots of questions about completely different things. And the team who wins usually gets some kind of prize. Free round of drinks, usually."

"Like, amaretto?"

"Like, whatever you want," Alicia covers hurriedly, keen to avoid Chakra happily informing Ethan that she totally missed a rather drunk Ruby giving her half an amaretto shot.

"Mammy, what are you _doing_?"

"I'm tying your hair up, because if you keep practicing all your gym stuff and I don't, you're only going to get it into a total knotty mess again by the time Ethan and I get back, aren't you? Or, look, we could cut this much off the ends, you see? So it would still be long, but it wouldn't get quite so tangled, and we wouldn't have to… are you looking at Ethan pleadingly?"

"Maybe."

"Guilty as charged," Ethan smiles, and then almost seems to think better of it, as though suddenly worried Chakra is going to think he's ganging up on her, still in that honeymoon period with her in which he's desperate for her to warm to him.

"You don't need to, though, you know that right?" Alicia reminds her, adjusts Chakra's ponytail; it's hitting her now that perhaps, in light of recent events, she needs to clarify, just in case Chakra is still a little traumatised when it comes to hair. "I mean, yes, Ethan's your other parent, but I'm not going to make you cut your hair if you don't want to, okay? It's just a suggestion, you're allowed to ignore it. If you want to keep channelling the Celtic warrior princess look, that's totally fine." She sighs, glances down at the kitchen table. "Are you sure you're done with your breakfast?"

Chakra nods, adamant, shoots that same pleading look between her parents. "I can't eat the rest of it…"

"Are you sure you can't eat half of that for me? Otherwise I'm going to have to tell Nana to put it in the microwave for you later, and that's going to be worse," Alicia tells her gently, makes the terrible mistake of meeting Ethan's eyes just for a moment, realises that this is just as awful for him as it is for her, having to put their daughter through this. "Half? Yeah? And then we'll all stop nagging you for the morning, I'll tell Nana you've done really well and you don't need to…"

Chakra blinks at her, freezes for a moment, and then out of nowhere she bursts into tears.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Alicia soothes, caught completely off-guard, panicked, almost, can't bear seeing her so upset and knowing it's all her fault and Ethan is going to be thinking she's a terrible mother, she's reduced their daughter to tears and she didn't even see it coming, she's useless, she's completely useless. "Don't cry, Chakka, it's okay. Don't cry. I'm sorry. I know you're fed up with me…"

"I'm not fed up with you," Chakra sobs, pushes her breakfast away. "I'm not fed up with you, I'm not…"

"Okay. Okay, well, I'm really glad you're not," Alicia tries helplessly, bends, wraps her arms around Chakra's shoulders from behind her, curses the Holby child psych, because her first instinct is to pick her up and hold her tightly and hope it calms her down but now, post-child psych, she's suddenly doubting herself, paranoid that maybe this is where she's going wrong after all, maybe she's so busy doing what feels right for her as her mother, for her own benefit, that she's not noticing that she's babying her, failing to teach her to be resilient. "But I'm still sorry, I know this is really, really rubbish. I'm not trying to upset you deliberately, sweetheart, you know that, right? I'm sorry this is all so horrible for you." She glances across at Ethan awkwardly, panicked, knows she's going to upset him but she just doesn't know what to do, has to put Chakra's needs first. "Do you want to go and sit in the other room for a minute?" she tries, squeezes Chakra's shoulders. "Because we can, if you want to, just you and me, we can…"

Chakra shakes her head firmly, pulls her knees up to her chest, silent save her breath coming in harsh gasps, sobbing loudly.

"Okay. Okay, that's fine," Alicia soothes. "Come on, sweetheart, it's okay. Do you know why you're crying? No? Okay," she sighs. "I know, that almost makes it worse, doesn't it? I know. I know, it's not fair, is it? Hey? We haven't had anything quite like this before, have we?" she sighs gently, more for Ethan's benefit, really; she needs Ethan to know that this isn't a regular occurrence, not the spontaneous sobbing for no apparent reason, not like this.

She can see the panic in his eyes already; as hard as he's clearly trying to hide it, it's painfully apparent. He's keeping well out of it, silent, almost as though he's afraid of interfering, out of his depth, convinced he'll only say the wrong thing and make it all worse, and Alicia wishes she could tell him that she doesn't have a clue what she's doing anymore either, making it all up as she's goes along and desperately hoping for the best.

"I'm sorry," Chakra sobs. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

"Hey, we already had this conversation last night, didn't we? You've got nothing to apologise for, have you? You're allowed to be upset. Well, as long as you assure Ethan you're not crying because my cooking is seriously awful, then he might want to go back to Glastonbury ASAP."

Chakra smiles faintly.

"There you go, see? It's not so bad, right? Everything's going to be fine, Chakka," Alicia promises quietly. "Everything's going to be fine. But I really need you to try and eat some more of your breakfast before Nana gets here, can you do that for me? It'll make you feel better. I know it really doesn't feel like that at the moment, but it will eventually, it's just going to take time. You're doing really, really well, sweetheart, I just need you to finish this for me. And then Ethan and I are going to talk to your teachers, and then everything's sorted with school, alright? I promise. You don't have to worry about going back there."

"Don't you have to send me, though?"

"Not at the moment, because you've got a pretty good excuse. This counts as illness, okay? You don't have to go to school when you're ill, do you?"

"You made me go to school that time when I had tonsillitis."

"Yep, I did." Alicia glances across to Ethan guiltily, takes in his bemused expression. "I'd just come off a night shift and I was half asleep, and I'm really sorry, I should have listened to you, shouldn't I? But I promise I'm listening to you now, I'm not going to do that to you again. I don't think we need to decide anything just yet, I think we can wait until you've had a few sessions with the counsellor- do you remember we talked about that?"

"The woman that the doctor we saw wants me to talk to."

"See, I knew I didn't need to take any notes on Tuesday, did I? You remember everything. I know it sounds a bit… I don't know, like it won't achieve much, but it'll help. The first few sessions you might think it isn't going to, but I promise it will. And then we'll decide what we're doing about school in a few weeks or so, okay?" she offers, meets Ethan's eyes for a moment, seeking his approval. "We can maybe see if you could do the rest of year three at another school, once you're feeling a bit better? But we don't have to make a decision about that now, we can think about it in a few weeks."

"Mammy?" Chakra asks quietly. "Mammy, I don't…" She shakes her head, disengages.

"You don't think another school is going to help?" Alicia realises. "We don't know that, do we? You loved your last school. I could hardly drag you away from your last school, could I? I don't think you're ready to try it right now, are you, but maybe in a couple of months, you might…"

"Mammy," Chakra protests anxiously. "Mammy…"

"Hey, it's okay. We're not going to make you do anything you aren't ready for, sweetheart, I promise. That's fine. I'm not going to mention it again, alright?" Alicia tells her, only hopes Chakra won't consider it a terrible lie that what she really means is she isn't going to mention it again for a couple of weeks or so.

"It doesn't matter if I go to a different school," Chakra says quietly, wipes at her eyes, despondent. "No one will like me there, either."

"That's not true," Alicia points out gently. "I know that's not true, lots of people like you, don't they? You've got loads of gym friends. I've got to work out what I'm feeding all of you for your birthday sleepover, haven't I, I _know_ you've got loads of friends."

"Scarlett has…" Chakra trails off, pauses, considers. "Seal disease."

"Seal disease?" Alicia laughs, bemused. "I don't think you mean seal, do you…"

"I do! She has seal disease, and it means she can't eat anything with flour in it. Like bread, and pasta, and she can't eat cake if someone at gym has a birthday, but she can't always eat vegan cake either."

"Oh, you mean coeliac disease?" Ethan offers. "That's exactly what coeliac disease is. It does sound a lot like seal disease, though, doesn't it?"

Chakra nods shyly, peers at Ethan over Alicia's shoulder.

"So you're having a sleepover for your birthday?" Ethan tries, tone light, attempting to distract her, and yet Alicia can tell he's desperately nervous. "That sounds like fun."

"It's with all my gym team."

"Oh, it is? And how many is all your gym team?"

"Eight. Including me."

"And before you ask, no, I have no idea why I agreed, either," Alicia teases. "It's basically going to be like booking the weekend off work to look after other people's kids in my own house, instead of the ED."

"Yes, but we're not going to break anything, Mammy."

"No, you're not," Alicia agrees. "Because I'm not having all of you on the trampoline at the same time, for a start."

"We all went on Phoebe's trampoline at the same time, when we had a sleepover at her house," Chakra confesses guiltily. "And Nadezhda broke her leg. And Mammy said we shouldn't have all been on the trampoline at the same time, and that's why it happened. And Phoebe's mam should have been watching us."

"Yes, I did, but we've talked about this, haven't we, and you know under no circumstances are you to tell anybody else I said that," Alicia warns. "Ethan's fine, you're allowed to tell Ethan."

"I've already told Auntie Ruby, though, because she had to pick Vasilisa and Sienna and me up from Phoebe's house so Phoebe's mam could take Nadezhda to your work. But I told her after Vasilisa and Sienna went home."

"Yep, I think we can make an exception for Auntie Ruby, too. And Auntie Bea, while we're at it. But you're not to tell anyone else, okay? You remember, you promised? Especially no one at gym, I don't want Phoebe's mam to accidentally find out I think she was stupid not to be supervising you."

"Alyona agrees with you. I didn't say anything though, she was talking about it when she brought me home from gym."

"Are you going to tell Ethan who Alyona is?" Alicia prompts. "Because Ethan won't know, will he?"

"She's my friend Vasilisa's mam."

"And Vasilisa's your best right, right?"

"Vasilisa's my Holby best friend."

"And Rosie's your Newcastle best friend? See, I listen. Are you going to finish your breakfast for me, then?" Alicia tries, desperately hopes she's as suitably distracted as she thinks she is. "Nana's going to be here soon, okay, and then Ethan and I are going out, but we'll be like, a couple of hours tops," she promises.

Chakra frowns for a moment, highly unimpressed, and at first Alicia doesn't think she's going to go along with it.

"Can I do my magnet experiment with Nana?" she asks, picks up her spoon, eats, and Alicia could cry with relief.

"Is that the one you saw on YouTube? You'll have to ask Nana, okay? But at isn't going to be a messy one, is it, so I'm sure she won't mind doing that one with you," Alicia tells her, trying her hardest to keep her distracted long enough to finish her breakfast.

"Mammy?"

"Hmm?"

"You promised that I could have a playdate with Rosie in the Easter holidays."

"Yep, I know I did. But I've been a bit busy, and I need to check my rota for the next few weeks, and then I need to text Rosie's mam and find out when her Easter holidays are, because they might be different in Gateshead, and then I need to ask Grandma if we can go and stay with her for a few days. But I will get onto it, okay? I haven't forgotten," Alicia lies.

"Or Rosie could come for a sleepover at our house?"

"That's a really, really long way for Rosie's mam to have to drive each way though, I don't think we can ask her to do that. It's not so bad for us, because we can stay at Grandma's, can't we?"

"We could bring Rosie back to ours?"

"Yep, but then Rosie still has to get home somehow, doesn't she? We might have to leave that one until you're both teenagers and you can do the week-long sleepover thing, I remember doing that with one of my friends when she moved to Birmingham."

"Emily?"

"Yes, Emily. You don't miss anything, do you? Are you finished?"

Chakra nods shiftily, glances between Alicia and Ethan.

"Hey, it's okay. I think we'll let you off with that." She looks over to Ethan momentarily, seeking his approval. But you're going to eat all your lunch later, right? Good girl. Can you go and get changed then, please, before Nana gets here?"

"Can I wear the jumpsuit thing Auntie Ruby got me?"

"Do you mean your new one that looks like you belong at a boho festival? I think it's probably still a bit cold for that. For you, anyway."

"But I can just put tights under it, Mammy."

"Really?"

"Yes, because you won't see them. And then I can just wear a jumper."

"Right, okay, serious boho vibes. You can wear whatever you want then, if you've thought about it being cold out, I'm clearly far too uncool to be giving you fashion advice. Are you going to put your bowl in the dishwasher for me first, please?"

"I don't know how you do it," Ethan murmurs, waits until Chakra is safely out of earshot, disappeared up the stairs, and his voice is laced with despondence. "I don't even know how to talk to her, I don't know how you can talk her round when she's like that."

"You think I know what I'm doing?" Alicia tries, fights her hardest to keep her tone light, focus on reassuring him, but as hard as she tries, she can't quite keep her own anxieties from becoming painfully obvious. "I haven't got a clue. I've done the basic training and I've read all the journal articles and I still don't have a clue what I'm doing, believe me. You can't do any worse than I am, try whatever you like with her. She's your daughter. I'm…" she hesitates, never been an overly emotional person, not really, not under normal circumstances, and yet all of a sudden she's desperately trying to fight back tears she wasn't anticipating. "I'm only managing damage control, really, at this point, so please do try anything you can think of with her. You can't make it any worse, Ethan- no, really," she insists, taking in his doubtful expression. "Trust me, you can't. I had her sobbing her heart out when she was in the ED because her body image is so messed up she didn't want to get changed in front of me, let alone anyone in Paeds. And she's not even eight yet. And I don't know what to do about it."

"I don't know you've done it," Ethan admits guiltily. "I don't know how you've done it all by yourself. Not even... not even just this. All of it."

"Because I've had to," Alicia tells him quietly, feels terrible for even going there, but what else can she possibly say? "I've done it because I've had to."

 **Once again, I am so, so sorry! I think I've mentioned before that I've had a major project thing in off of fanfiction life that has taken over my life for the last few months, and it's all been such a nightmare I've nearly dropped out of it a few times this week. I've also had quite a stressful couple of weeks for other reasons I won't go into, and it's all just been a bit much. But it's finally all over, so I promise I will be updating this more regularly again! Your reviews are always appreciated, but I am hugely grateful to Katie, 20blueroses, BrightWrites, Guest and lewisek18 this week, you have honestly cheered me up a ridiculous amount over the last two weeks.**

 **Alicia's pregnancy has come up a few times now in your reviews, so I thought it was best to address it here: there is a LOT on medical sites about how pregnancy after rape can be incredibly traumatic, but very little actual information or research that seems to have been done. It's exactly the same for pregnancy and eating disorders. Everything I've read researching this story suggests that body dysmorphia and/or eating disorders is, startlingly, nowhere near as uncommon as you might think, and yet no one talks about it. And again, there doesn't seem to be any real research or advice available, just an acknowledgement that it's something women do experience. So I've really tried to address that through this story.**

 **Reviews would be wonderful as ever, I was worried you were all going to lose interest when Chelsea left the show, so it honestly means the world to know I still have readers! I haven't decided if I'm going to give you a past chapter or another present chapter next yet, so if you have a preference, feel free to let me know :)**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	44. Chapter 44

**Chapter 44**

"That'll be Nana, Chakra!" Alicia calls as the doorbell sounds, rushes out of the kitchen, along the hallway. "Can you come down here, please!"

Chakra skips down the stairs obediently, presses into Alicia's side as she moves to open the front door, almost as though she's expecting a stranger to walk in, not her grandmother.

 _Please act like you're pleased to see her_ , Alicia groans to herself, not sure she can take the look of disappointment on her mam's face if Chakra tenses up and doesn't want to be left again.

"Hi, Mam," she smiles, accepts her mam's hug, tries to keep her nerves at bay because it's not even just her and Ethan's meeting at Chakra's school that she's worried about just now, not when she's got this to get through first. "Thanks so much for this, I don't want to take her anywhere near that school if I can help it…"

"It's fine, darling, don't be so silly. You know I don't mind. How's my favourite granddaughter today?" she asks, crouches down, and Alicia breathes a sigh of relief when Chakra peels away from her side, accepts Jackie's offer of a hug.

"I'm your only granddaughter, though."

"Exactly, that means you're always going to be my favourite, doesn't it? So did you enjoy your birthday trip to London with Auntie Bea, then?"

"It was really good, thank you. Did _everyone_ know about that except for me?"

"Of course they did, that's why it was a surprise," Alicia teases. "Are you going to let Nana actually get in through the door, then, Chakra?"

"Nana?" Chakra babbles, moves to hang off of the banister, retreats at Alicia's warning glare. "I'm doing a project, about King Arthur and Camelot, and Mammy got me some giant sheets of paper, and I have glitter pens…"

"Glitter pens? Wow, art projects have moved on since your mam was in primary school, I don't think I've ever seen a glitter pen."

"It's not an art project, Nana, it's a history project."

"Oh, I see, and you're just making it look pretty as well? I'll tell you what, why don't we go and put the kettle on, and then you can show me…"

Her mam trails off, and instinctively, Alicia knows exactly why, but no part of her wants to accept it.

Ethan has appeared in the hallway, leaning heavily on his crutches, his face a picture of apprehension.

They stare at each other for what feels like a lifetime. It's as though time has suddenly come to a standstill, as though in that moment they're so taken aback by each other's presence, so many emotions and not enough time to process them, that neither of them can react, not at first.

"Hi, Ethan," Jackie manages at last.

There's a horribly forced brightness to her tone, as though she's not exactly thrilled to see him, and Alicia's heart sinks, because it's so painfully obvious from Ethan's expression that he hasn't failed to notice.

He's going to be thinking that her mam hates him for what he did. He's going to be thinking that he hasn't got a hope in hell of being forgiven any time soon, shit…

"Hi, Jackie," Ethan stammers awkwardly, visibly nervous, limbs jerking, and Alicia makes a mental note to look into whether stress and anxiety impact upon presentation of symptoms in Huntington's patients.

"You're going with Alicia, then, are you?" Jackie asks, expression hard.

"I… yes, Alicia… Alicia thought…"

"I thought it's only fair to start including him in these things," Alicia tells her firmly, leaves the rest of it unsaid. "We should probably get going, Ethan, we don't want to keep them waiting. So we're coming right back, Chakra, okay?" she murmurs, pulls Chakra gently into her arms. "We're going to be a couple of hours maximum, and then we're coming right back, I promise. I love you."

"I love you, too." Chakra whispers, shivers, and Alicia can't decide if she's nervous or so short of body fat by this point that tights plus jumpsuit thing that Ruby found her in Monsoon kids isn't going to do anything for her. "Bye, Ethan."

Should she be coaching her? Alicia worries as she pulls the front door shut behind them, unlocks her car; she'd walk it, with Chakra, usually, only a few minutes up the road, but Ethan doesn't have a hope of limping up there and back and she knows better than to even suggest using his wheelchair. Should she be encouraging Chakra to give Ethan the same goodbye treatment, the physical part, at least? She's warming to him, there's no question of that, but she's clearly not quite reached hugging goodbye levels just yet, and Alicia gets it, but should she be encouraging her along slightly to spare Ethan's feelings?

The look on his face when Chakra made such a fuss of leaving her for a couple of hours, then said goodbye to Ethan perfectly casually and skipped off into the kitchen to unearth her King Arthur project…

"Your mum's not best pleased about me being here," Ethan forces out at last, breaks the silence as Alicia starts the car engine. "I mean, I can't say I blame her, not after everything I…"

"That's not true, Ethan," Alicia insists gently. "She's… I had to tell her," she confesses apologetically. "I know you didn't want people knowing, but we agreed, didn't we, we agreed we'd tell my parents eventually, and I… I didn't tell everyone straight away, after I got Chakra's test results, I just… I was all over the place after they picked up the exomphalos on the ultrasound, and then… well, you know how I felt about the whole pregnancy thing by then, it took me a while to get my head around telling people, even though it was so painfully obvious I was just being ridiculous, really, and then Mam and Dad found out before I could tell them myself and it all just got a bit heated, I had to explain why…"

"No, of course you did," Ethan agrees quickly. "You needed the support, I never expected you to keep it all a secret, I mean… it's not like I was ever going to see anyone here again, was it, had it been left to me…"

"I've never told the ED," Alicia murmurs. "Well, Charlie worked it out, but that was a coincidence, that was only because one of his old colleagues happened to do a couple of locum shifts at the Avalon Clinic. That's how he found out. I've never told anyone else. It didn't seem fair."

Ethan closes his eyes, leans back against the seat. "You shouldn't have had to do that…"

"No," Alicia tells him simply. "No, but I wanted to. And Mam doesn't mean it like that, I promise she doesn't. She understands why you did what you did…"

"What, why your boyfriend pushed you down a flight of stairs at sixteen weeks pregnant and didn't even bother hanging around to find out if she…"

"That's not what happened, Ethan," Alicia reminds him, reaches out, rests her hand gently on Ethan's leg, attempts to comfort him. "You know it isn't. And yes, I promise you, Mam understands. I think… she's my mam, Ethan, she's just being protective, she might take a while to warm to you again but I promise she understands. She won't hold a grudge against you forever."

"I don't know if I could forgive any boyfriend of Chakra's who put her through even half what I did you," Ethan admits shakily. "I… I mean, we're a long way off that stage with her yet, aren't we? I hope so, anyway. And I've only known she exists for what, a month, but I don't think there's anything I wouldn't do for her. If anyone ever dared…" He shudders. "So I can't even imagine how your mum must feel, I wouldn't blame her if she hated me…"

"She doesn't hate you," Alicia insists. "Mam doesn't hate you, Ethan, I promise. I think she's… I think she's just being overprotective," she manages at last. "And you get that, right? If that's how you feel about Chakra, you get it. She… I think all it's about is her worrying that it's not going to work out between us again, she's just doing the overprotective parent thing. She'll come around. She just needs time, that's all." She indicates, pulls in on the road outside Chakra's school, breathes deeply. "This is it. Okay. Okay, we can do this. I haven't…" She trails off, shudders, closes her eyes for a moment once the hand break is on. "I haven't been back here… last time I was here, it was when she ran away from school…"

Ethan turns her hand over in his gently, squeezes.

"She's going to be fine," he says softly. "She will, Alicia. We just need to get her through this somehow, and then she'll be fine."

"How can you say that, though?" Alicia whispers, distressed. "You saw her this morning, how are we ever going to get her well enough to send her back to school, Ethan? It doesn't matter if it's this place or not, does it, not when she's like this, I just can't see how she's ever going to get any better…"

"I can." Ethan grips her hand a little tighter. "I can, because you're brilliant with her. No, really, you are," he insists. "Don't look so doubtful, Leesh, you are…"

"I don't have a clue what I'm doing, Ethan, I don't have the faintest idea…"

"Except you do. Have you seen the way she looks at you? Whatever else is going on in her head, she clearly knows you love her. And she adores you, anyone can see that. And you got her to eat, didn't you? And she didn't hate you by the end of it. Far from it. You're doing everything you possibly can with her in an awful situation, that's really all you can do. I know it's not that easy..."

"Do you think I baby her?" Alicia worries. "The first child psych she saw, the one who insisted she was fine to go back to school, she kept insisting I baby her too much, she thought I was…"

"No," Ethan tells her firmly. "Of course you don't, don't be so silly. She's seven…"

"Nearly eight," Alicia reminds him weakly.

"Okay, so she's nearly eight. But still, she's pretty independent for eight, isn't she? She's still so young, she's allowed to need you as much as she likes at this age, surely? She just really, really loves you, and she's obviously struggling at the moment. What does the child psych expect you to do, just leave her to it?"

"Exactly," Alicia sighs, climbs out of the car, retrieves Ethan's crutches from the back seat. "Thank god her new child psych doesn't see it like that, I don't think I'll ever be able to think Mrs Beauchamp enough. Best £90 I've ever spent, that. Shall we get this over with, then?"

Ethan accepts his crutches reluctantly, follows Alicia along the pavement towards the school gates. "It'll be fine. They can't really argue, can they? You've got a child psych report recommending that you follow her lead with school for the time being, her teachers can't possibly argue with that."

"I mean, when the child psych said that, I think what she meant was I make some kind of effort to get her into school each morning," Alicia confesses guiltily. "I haven't been doing that at all, I've been not mentioning school to her full stop and just phoning in each morning to say she won't be coming in- I mean, there's no point, is there? Every time I tried to convince her _before_ last week, she was getting herself horribly worked up about it, and that isn't going to help, is it? She's not going to start getting over this any time soon if I'm still trying to persuade her to go to school every morning. So I've just been telling them I've tried and she's too distressed at the thought of school for me to send her in. I mean, I think they know I'm not making much of an effort too, at this point, this meeting was their idea, and I made it pretty clear when I agreed to it that I'm not sending her anywhere near this place again until they can assure me they've dealt with their safeguarding issues."

"No. No, I think…" Ethan lowers his voice as they walk slowly up the pathway towards the school office. "Even if they have addressed the student safety element, they can't… they haven't taken any action over the bullying element, have they?"

"Oh, they're still maintaining that Sophia couldn't possibly have cut her hair and she must have done it herself," Alicia sighs bitterly. "It's ridiculous. She's not… I mean, it's your decision as well, now, it needs to come from both of us. You can see what you think, today…"

"No," Ethan shakes his head firmly. "I trust your judgement. If you think we need to just pull her out, then I'm fine with that…"

"I think we do," Alicia admits quietly, pauses for a moment in the entrance. "I think we do, I'm just not sure it's that easy. Hi," she greets the school receptionist, hadn't intended to sound quite as passive aggressive as she realises all-too-late that she most definitely does. "I've got an appointment with Mrs Gainham for ten, it's Alicia Munroe."

The receptionist nods apprehensively, almost as though she's been briefed in advance, Alicia ponders to herself, as though she's been warned that she's that nightmare parent who keeps questioning the school's every move. "Of course, if you could just sign in, please, I'll take you through now."

"You go so much more Geordie when you're angry," Ethan murmurs as they follow the receptionist along the corridor, clearly attempting to distract her a little, calm her down.

"Oh, you think this is angry? Just you wait, this is nothing. Never cross a Geordie mother."

The last time she was here, it was Mrs Beauchamp leading her to the head teacher's office, Chakra was missing…

"Hi, Alicia. Do you want to come through?" Rachel Gainham offers, greets them in the doorway along with Mrs Davies, Chakra's class teacher (she's being far too nice, Alicia contemplates absentmindedly, as though she's trying to make up for last time, knows just how badly she messed up). "And this is…"

"Ethan Hardy, Chakra's father," Alicia adds quickly, doesn't quite trust Ethan not to stammer apologetically.

She wants Chakra's teachers to think Ethan is getting involved now because they're taking this more seriously than they were before, not because Ethan has only just become a part of their daughter's life.

The last thing they need is Chakra's school deciding all her problems are stemming from the fact that Alicia has decided to bring her father into her life out of the blue.

"I didn't know Chakra's father was involved…" Mrs Davies begins.

"Ethan works in Bath during the week, we didn't think there was any point putting him down as one of Chakra's emergency contacts," Alicia lies coolly.

"I see. Well, if you'd both like to take a seat…" Sarah Gainham gestures to the chairs facing her desk. "First of all, I'd like to apologise to you both on behalf of all our staff here at St Cuthberts, what happened last well… well, it absolutely shouldn't have happened. We're all so relieved Chakra was found safe. I wanted to assure you personally that we've taken steps to ensure nothing like that will ever be able to happen again, we've now nominated additional members of staff to cover responsibility for locking the school gates, in the event of absence, and we're going to increase our staff presence at break times. We're trialling a system of teaching assistants accompanying children in the younger years out of class during lesson time, I'm happy to keep you updated on that. I can only apologise for what happened, we failed your daughter last week, and I'm so sorry. But we've dealt with it, we're confident all of your concerns have been addressed. There's no reason Chakra wouldn't be perfectly safe in our care…"

"And what about when she's actually in class?" Alicia questions. "Chakra's adamant she ran because Sophia Donnelly cut her hair, and Chakra isn't known for lying…"

"We spoke to Sophia after Chakra went missing," Mrs Davies defends. "So did the police. Sophia insisted she had nothing to do with it, another pupil confirmed she and Sophia saw Chakra cut her own hair…"

"And that would be Evie, would it? I'm assuming you got my emails?" Alicia asks.

"We've read them, yes…"

"Then you'll know that Chakra says Sophia and Evie have been making fun of her hair for months, and Evie was playing along with Sophia when she cut Chakra's hair. I had Chakra in floods of tears the other night, apparently when she was in school last week, Evie was telling Chakra all sorts of rubbish about how she's too 'weird' to be my daughter and I must wish she was more normal. And Chakra seems to think the whole hair cutting incident happened on her literacy table. Which I'm a bit confused about, because given all the conversations we've had about bullying already this year, I didn't think there was any danger of her being put back on the same table as Sophia on her first day back in school, not when you knew how anxious she was."

"We set their tables for literacy and numeracy according to their ability, it's a school policy…"

"You know what? Normally I'd think why should Chakra have to move, given she's the one being bullied, but I think I would have been happier if you had moved her. You do realise the whole thing could have been avoided if only you'd made the slightest bit of effort to keep Chakra and Sophia apart? Chakra didn't run because she just couldn't be bothered with school last week, she ran because she was so upset Sophia had cut her hair…"

"So Chakra says. Sophia and the other child who witnessed it have told us something very different," Sarah Gainham insists firmly.

"I'm sorry, Chakra was so upset about it, there's no way she did it to herself…"

"You don't think it could have been a cry for help? I've read the child psych report you sent over…"

"Oh, don't," Alicia warns. "Just don't go there, you don't know. We think she may be self-harming, yes, but scratching herself and cutting of a chunk of her hair are two completely different things. I've been trying to persuade her to cut her hair shorter for ages and she's always been completely against it, there's no way she would have done it to herself."

"We can't prove anything either way, Alicia…"

"No," Ethan agrees, all his earlier nervousness suddenly gone. "But whatever happened, presumably there were members of staff present?"

"I was in the room with one of the teaching assistants, yes…"

"Then does it matter whether Sophia's the one responsible or not?" Ethan asks, and in that moment, Alicia is so, so glad she persuaded him to come with her. "Either way, it happened under your supervision and you didn't notice, Chakra asked you if you could use the toilets and you still didn't notice..."

"Like I said, we can only apologise for what happened last week. It shouldn't have happened. No one's denying that. And yes, we'll be ensuring all of our staff are given refresher training at the next available opportunity on…"

"So you can guarantee that if we send Chakra back into school, you won't be losing her again, but you can't guarantee she's not going to end up feeling just as distressed as she did last week?" Alicia summarises. "Because that's what you're saying, isn't it? She's not going to be able to run away again, but you aren't doing anything to address the reason she ran away in the first place…"

"Friendships can be tricky at this age," Mrs Davies admits.

"She hasn't made any friends in her class at all, that's a bit more than tricky," Alicia retorts. "She was absolutely fine at her last school, she had plenty of friends, we never had anything remotely like this. It's not the move back down here, she's had no trouble making friends outside of school, and I've spoken to you I don't know how many times since September about how she's struggling socially…"

"And I completely appreciate your concerns. But like I said, year three is a tricky age for friendships. We've tried all the usual tactics with her- you know that, we've talked about this. We've given her a nominated friend in the class to look out for her at break time, we've encouraged her to use the friendship bench…"

"Which Chakra says doesn't work," Alicia finishes. "You said there were other children nominated to make sure anyone on the friendship bench or whatever you call it has someone to spend break time with, Chakra seems to think she's spent whole break times sat there some days…"

"Like I said, it's difficult at this age. With the best will in the world, we really can't force friendships at this age. We can encourage them, yes, but if Chakra hasn't clicked with the other children…"

"You can't make them be friends with her. I know. So does that just mean that Chakra has to be isolated, then? Or have you considered that maybe she's not making friends because there _is_ some kind of bullying issue, and maybe if you addressed that…"

"I understand you're upset," Mrs Davies sighs. "But we haven't noticed any bullying, certainly not from Sophia, if she was involved, it would be the first time…"

"And you didn't notice the hair incident last week, however it happened, so I'm sure you can understand why I'm sceptical…"

"Like I said before, we can't apologise enough for that. It shouldn't have happened," Mrs Gainham admits. "It should never have happened, and we're taking steps to ensure it won't ever happen again. But we can only act based on what we've seen, Alicia, and when it's one child's word against another's…"

"Could you not try some kind of class discussion about bullying and excluding other children…"

"We already have," Mrs Davies tells Ethan. "It hasn't made much of a difference for Chakra, unfortunately. I know you're convinced there's an underlying issue with the other children…"

"It's the only explanation that makes any sense…"

"I was going to suggest that maybe it isn't anything specific at school that's causing her problems," Mrs Davies tries carefully. "I've read the child psych report you sent over, it's clear that Chakra has significant psychological problems…"

"And the child psych also concluded that she's experiencing significant anxiety surrounding school, it's not all down to… down to her other problems," Alicia argues shakily. "I'm not having any issues getting her to activities she does outside of school, but from what I've seen, her issues with food aren't any better out of school than they are here. She's been so much calmer since I've stopped trying to get her into school, she's still been struggling, I know that, but she's been significantly improved. She's gone downhill again since I sent her in last week, the child psych doesn't think the two aren't connected either…"

"She needs to be in school, Alicia. She's missed almost half of this academic year now…"

"Yes. Yes, she has, so I've been doing something about it." Alicia reaches into her handbag, pulls out the A4 folder to make this point exactly, hands it over to Chakra's class teacher. "That's half a term's worth of literacy and numeracy, last week's spelling homework and she's done about a hundred history projects about the Celts and the Anglo Saxons. And a decent amount of science. She's not suffering academically. But then even if she was, she's seven. She's got her whole life ahead of her to worry about her education, I think her mental state's more important at this stage."

"It puts us in rather a difficult situation," Mrs Gainham explains. "I know the child psych has recommended you follow Chakra's lead with school for the time being, whilst she's being treated, that means her absence will go down as authorised. The local authority won't be getting involved with a child psych report. But it still affects our attendance records…"

"Please don't say this is all about your own statistics." Ethan's expression is a picture of complete and utter exasperation. "Chakra's experiencing significant distress, she's still struggling with EDNOS we're no closer to getting under control- Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified," he elaborates quickly, at Chakra's teachers' confused expressions. "She doesn't quite fit a specific diagnosis. And she's _seven_. It's not as if she's got exams coming up any time soon, surely her mental health has to come first at the moment? And her physical health, come to that. It's only going to keep getting worse if we don't deal with it properly now. So if you want us to keep torturing her and sending her into school when it's obvious it's having such a detrimental impact on her mental state, just because she's going to mess up your attendance statistics, then I'm afraid you're just going to have to…"

"I didn't mean it like that…"

"I'm glad to hear it. Then you'll understand why we really don't feel we can force this with her at the moment." Ethan glances across to Alicia, seeking her reassurance, almost as though he's afraid he's messing it all up. "If you've read Chakra's child psych report, you'll know the psychiatrist who assessed her most recently concluded she isn't well enough to be in school at the moment…"

"If it's causing her so much distress. Often we find with school refusal that once children start attending again…"

"And the child psych was very clear that this is more than just school refusal," Alicia retorts. "It's affecting her physical health at this point, it's going to start doing irreversible damage to her development if she carries on like this much longer. I'm not doing that to her. She's seven, she's far too young to be destabilising her growth. I know we can't keep her off school forever, I completely accept that. I don't _want_ to keep her off school forever. I just think we need to give her a chance to start getting over this before we try putting her back into an environment it's pretty clear she's finding highly distressing. She's starting therapy next week, she's been referred for outpatient treatment, she's going to find all of that stressful enough for the first few weeks without us adding school back into the mix. And I'm sorry, but that has to be priority right now."

"If you're thinking of home educating long term, you could always…"

"Deregister her from school here," Alicia finishes, irritant. "I know, you told me last time we had one of these meetings. And like I told you then, I don't think we're at that stage yet. I don't _want_ to put her through the upheaval of moving her twice in the space of year, believe me, I don't…"

"You mean moving her into the other year three class? We talked about this last time, if we agreed to move our pupils every time we had a parent request, they'd be complete and utter chaos…"

"And you don't think this is an exception? I'm not asking for her to be moved just because she's decided she doesn't like the other children in her current class, or something, it's gone well beyond that…"

"We can't do that," Mrs Gainham insists firmly. "We don't move children into different classes, that's our school policy. I'm not sure what you want us to do at this point, Alicia, I'm really not. We've tried talking to the other children, Sophia Donnelly is adamant she hasn't been saying unkind things to…"

"Well, she would be, wouldn't she…"

"The other children support Sophia's version of events from last week," Mrs Davies says, almost as irritant as Alicia at this point. "I've known Sophia since she was in year one, I've never known her to be involved in behaviour like Chakra's describing to you. There have been a couple of very minor things, yes, but that's far from uncommon at this age. It's certainly not an indicator of this level of bullying. We've never witnessed any of these incidents Chakra's told you about at school, Chakra's never approached me about any of this herself- I know, I know, you think she's afraid of telling me herself. But you have to understand, it makes it an awful lot harder for us to get to the bottom of what actually happened. We can only go on what we see. We can discuss it with Sophia, we can get her version of events, we can remind the children generally that it's important to be kind to others, but we can't tackle it as ruthlessly as you seem to want us to when we've only got Chakra's word for it. Like I said to you last week, I'll do my best to help her settle in if you decide you're going to send her back to school. If you don't plan to, if you'd rather continue with the home education route…" She gestures to the folder of Chakra's assorted projects and worksheets placed on the table in front of her.

"It's not a long-term solution- it can't be, I work full time, more than full time, some weeks…"

"… You have the option of deregistering her," Mrs Davies finishes. "Like you said, it's your decision, not ours."

Alicia pauses for a moment, head spinning. "And if I don't want to make a decision right now, you'll take her child psych report as an explanation for her absence, it won't go to…"

"It wouldn't go to the local authority, no. But even so, I'd really advise you to…"

"Then I don't think we're going to take any action, for the moment." Alicia glances across to Ethan, seeking his approval. "Chakra hasn't even started treatment yet, I don't think we want to be making a decision right now. But I'm not sending her into school if the thought of it's still causing her this much distress. I'm not doing it. I'll send her in if she's calm enough it isn't going to make her worse, I'm not putting her in a situation like last week again. We'll wait until she's started treatment, and we'll think about it again then. I'm not making a decision either way before that."

She's not entirely sure why she's so reluctant. She's already made up her mind, after all, decided that unless something drastic changes soon in Chakra's school's handling of the whole situation, she's not sending her back there, not ever. She can't bear the thought of her daughter having to endure another minute in that environment, not when it's so painfully clear that even if school isn't the root of the problem, it's a huge part of it.

Because she doesn't want to make it that easy for them, perhaps? Because she doesn't want to allow them to simply wash their hands of her daughter, can't see how it's fair for it to be that easy for them when they've caused so much damage, messed up so catastrophically?

She doesn't know, not quite.

Nothing seems to make any sense anymore.

Nothing but this.

Whatever she does long term, she can't send Chakra back here; Alicia's mind is already made up on that. She won't do that to her.

She just doesn't want to have to confront it all quite yet, feels horribly overwhelmed at the mere thought of pulling her daughter out of school completely and she doesn't want to deal with it just now, not on top of everything else.

It shouldn't be any different, not really. If she's certain she's not sending Chakra into school any time soon, what does it matter whether she's still technically registered there or not?

Alicia can't quite answer that.

"I can see we're not going to change your mind any time soon," Mrs Gainham sighs. "And you're happy with this?" She turns to Ethan now, almost as though she hopes she might be able to win Alicia over if she can manipulate Ethan into agreeing with her, turn them against each other.

"Of course I am," Ethan responds coldly. "This isn't just Alicia's decision, this is coming from both of us. We've both decided this is in Chakra's best interests for the time being. She's gone downhill hugely since she was in school last week, and she only managed a couple of hours before she hit breaking point, she… she shouldn't even know what that is at her age," he says quietly, and there's no doubt in Alicia's mind what he's remembering, exactly what he's worrying Chakra has inherited from him. "There's a family history of mental health problems- I've… I've got Huntington's Disease," he forces out, and there's something in his tone that causes Alicia to suspect this is the first time he's voiced it allowed voluntarily.

"And Chakra hasn't," Ethan continues shakily. "Chakra's not going to have to go through this, thank goodness, but it's difficult to say how far my own mental health problems were linked to Huntington's. I don't know, is the honest answer, and I don't think we're ever going to know. But I think we have to bear in mind that Chakra could well be more vulnerable to psychological problems than average, we need to deal with this now before it gets any worse. I… I think we've gone well beyond dealing with this before it becomes a problem for her now, I think we'd be fooling no one but ourselves if we tried to pretend this is going to be a tiny part of her childhood and she won't even remember it. But I… I know, we need to make sure this is going to be something that happened to her when she was seven, not something that started ruining her life when she was seven. So yes, I'd much rather she was in school. But that's really not priority at the moment. It can't be priority all the while she's like this."

"Thank you," Alicia whispers quietly, as they walk together back through the school gates. "For backing me up. I'm sorry, I know I should have involved you more in all of this…"

"Don't be so silly. You haven't been able to, for a start." Ethan sighs despairingly, lowers himself gingerly into the passenger seat. "I haven't exactly been pulling my weight with the whole parenting thing, you couldn't have involved me whether you wanted to or not…"

"I could have for the last month or so, though," Alicia points out. "I should never have waited until last week to tell you, it wasn't fair to spring it all on you like that. At least if I'd told you before, it wouldn't have all been such a shock when she ran away from school…"

"You were protecting her. I understand that, I don't blame you. You're an amazing mum to her…"

Alicia closes her eyes, breathes heavily for a moment, avoids turning the key in the ignition. "I don't feel like I am."

"That's because you're in an impossible situation with her at the moment," Ethan reminds her gently. "You're doing brilliantly. It's just an awful situation. She loves you, she trusts you, it could be an awful lot worse. She's not shutting you out completely…"

"She's getting pretty close. It's like…" Alicia sighs, shakes her head. "It's not as simple as her just shitting me out, it's like she wants to tell me and she just can't bring herself to say whatever it is she's so upset about… and I don't know what to do about it…"

"She'll get there," Ethan murmurs, squeezes her hand comfortingly. "She will, Leesh, think of the progress you've made with her in the last week. And she's got her first therapy session on Monday, right?"

Alicia nods. "And then we've got to get her to the outpatient unit. God only knows what she's going to make of that."

"Did you have to? You know, with… Sorry, sorry I shouldn't… that's none of my business…"

"No, it's okay. I had counselling, yes. They tried to get me to join a pregnancy support group thing, but I wasn't going anywhere near that. Ruby got me into yoga and mindfulness in the end, that kept them off my back for a while. I didn't have to do the outpatient clinic part, thankfully, I don't even know how they would have dealt with that, given… I don't know, I mean, there must be a procedure for outpatient appointments and pregnancy, but I didn't have to do any of that. It was the trying to cover it up really that messed with my head, I honestly think it all stemmed from that. It was stupid, I should never have tried to ignore it all for as long as I did. I… I don't think I was ever as bad as Chakra is now," she admits quietly. "And that terrifies me. I've already done enough damage to her without her going through it herself…"

"That isn't true…"

"Except it is, Ethan," Alicia sighs. "It definitely is. She was measuring two weeks behind my whole pregnancy, all of it that I managed, anyway, she was a scarily low birthweight, she had to be intubated at first, it took her weeks after surgery to work out how to feed properly, that's exactly what they warned me she was at risk of the whole way through and I still didn't manage to do anything about it…"

"And we've been through this before," Ethan reminds her gently. "We've got no way of knowing if that was going to be the case anyway, we haven't got half her family history as far as that's concerned, have we?"

"You only need to look at her to know she's taken after me, Ethan, you know that isn't true…"

"And it's not as simple as she looks like you so she's a carbon copy of you physically, you of all people know that. I know I wasn't here. And I'm so, so sorry, I should have been, I hate that I wasn't here to support you. But you haven't done any damage to her, darling. You really haven't. She's going to be absolutely fine, we just need to get her through this. There's no point keeping on blaming yourself like this, is there? Chakra wouldn't want you to keep doing this to yourself…"

"Except she doesn't know, Ethan," Alicia protests. "You don't know that, she's got every right to be angry with me if she… if she ever… I don't know, I'm going to have to tell her one day, aren't I, when she's old enough to understand, it's not fair to keep it from her, is it…"

"You don't have to make a decision about that now, darling. She's far too young just now, you've got plenty of time to think about that. But she wouldn't be angry with you, Alicia. I know she wouldn't. She's… well, she's going to understand, isn't she, for a start. And I wish it wasn't like that, but we can't change it. I don't think you need to make a big deal out of telling her, I really don't. I don't think it matters. I don't think Chakra will think it matters, she knows how much you love her, she knows you'd never do anything to hurt her- I know, I know what you're going to say, but it's not true. You haven't hurt her. She wouldn't ever think that. It was eight years ago, it doesn't matter now. All that matters is that you're a brilliant mum to her now, and there's absolutely no question of that."

"Thank you," Alicia whispers, smiles faintly, resists the temptation to curl into his arms. "We should go and get her, shouldn't we…"

"Or we could leave her with your mum for a bit longer, if you think she'd be okay with that?" Ethan suggests. "If you're still upset, we could go and get coffee, or something…"

Alicia shakes her head. "No. Another time, definitely, but I… I know she'll have been fine with Mam, but after how upset she was this morning… I just want to see for myself that she's alright…"

There's slightly more to it than that, of course. She's relieved that it's all over at Chakra's school, massively so, but suddenly she feels so protective all over again and she just wants to hold her, heart aching, wants to take away all of her daughter's pain and distress and she can't do that, no matter how much she wishes she could.

She wants to spend time alone with Ethan, just the two of them, but at the same time her maternal instincts have gone completely and utterly haywire and she can't bear the thought of being separated from her daughter for another moment either, and she knows it's stupid, she knows it is, but she just can't shake it.

"No, of course. Of course, I understand," Ethan covers quickly. "It's fine. We can do it another time."

She smiles at him gratefully, weight of the last eight years lifting from her slowly but surely. "I'd like that. I'd like that a lot."

 **I am so, so sorry my lovelies! As some of you know, I've been sent off to the east again, and I was planning on getting this finished for you on the plane, but everything's got a bit on top of me since I got here and I just haven't had time to work on this properly. This was a really, really hard chapter to write, which didn't help. The next one won't be, so I promise you won't have to wait so long again!**

 **Thank you as ever to the wonderful BrightWrites, Guest, Lewisek18 and Katie for taking the time to review this chapter. I am so, so grateful so many of you have stuck with this story.**

 **I think I'm going to give you another past chapter next (although as ever, if you would prefer otherwise, you are welcome to say so!), and then it won't be long until Alicia goes into labour. I also have a slight twist coming up in the present storyline, which you might be able to guess, there's a clue in chapter 13...**

 **Reviews would honestly make my week- I'm in language number four mode here, and so messages in English make me extra happy! -IseultLaBelle x**


	45. Chapter 45

**Chapter 45**

 **30 weeks**

It does start to get better, over that next week.

Ruby's insistence upon dragging her along to her yoga classes with mindfulness and essential oils and mindfulness and added chakra-energy-enhancing crystals thrown in for good measure finally seems to have a proper impact, and she's still stressed, still feels mildly repulsed and weighed down and horribly self-conscious and trapped in her own body, but it's nowhere near as awful as it has been. (And Laura the yoga teacher hasn't tried to talk her into prenatal yoga for weeks, seems to have accepted that there's no way Alicia is going anywhere near anything labelled 'pregnancy' and resolved to just leave her to it, much to her complete and utter relief.) She's still managing to struggle her way through the counselling sessions, not quite as resistant to them as she was before, finally back in work after two weeks off with yet another elbow dislocation, blissfully midwife appointment free that week, and that in itself feels like a giant weight lifted off of her.

Maybe it's something about reaching thirty weeks, something about making it through three quarters of her pregnancy that suddenly causes it all to feel a little more manageable. Alicia isn't sure. But for the first time, she doesn't feel horribly overwhelmed anymore, can picture herself making it through to the end of this pregnancy- and she knew she was going to have to somehow, up until now, but she just couldn't see how, no matter how hard she tried.

Ten more weeks. And it is going to be ten more weeks, Alicia isn't compromising on that. She's failed her baby enough already and she isn't even born yet, there's no way she's allowing herself to be pushed down the elective caesarean route, or an induction, for that matter. The midwife can try whatever she likes, but it won't be happening.

She can live with thirty-eight weeks, Alicia has decided. Ideally, she'd rather go to term, or overdue, preferably, to give her baby time to reach the size she should be by the time she's born, but if she has to go into labour before her due date, she can just about cope with thirty-eight weeks.

Going overdue is more or less her own worst nightmare, admittedly, and if her baby wasn't measuring so small, she'd be wanting this over as soon as physically possible, struggle through to thirty-six weeks and leave it at that. She probably would have embraced the thought of an induction with open arms. But she can't. Not like this, not when she knows full well the risks, knows that it just isn't that simple.

Alicia can't bear the thought of having to leave her daughter in SCBU as it is, and still she knows there's nothing she can do about it. But there's no way she's allowing her to be stuck in NICU for weeks.

She'll take another ten weeks of pregnancy hell over allowing her daughter to end up in NICU any day.

She still can't quite get her head around the fact that she's going to have a tiny baby to take care of, one that's not her patient, but _hers_ , in ten weeks' time.

It's difficult to explain. She's not in denial anymore; Alicia is sure of that, and it's certainly not that she doesn't want her.

It's never been about that.

She's scared. She's spent so much of her pregnancy trying desperately hard not to get too attached that it's almost as though she can't quite allow herself to accept that she can relax now, puts off her dad's offers to assemble the cot for her because it feels like tempting fate, somehow, as though the moment she washes all the baby clothes and gets the car seat out of the box something is going to go horribly wrong.

She's attached. She's well and truly attached, and deep down, Alicia knows she was all along. It's not as simple as that. She hadn't realised it was even possible to love another human being this much until a few weeks ago, and the mere thought of having to be separated from her is already causing her heart to ache.

She does love her. She just absolutely hates the whole pregnancy part.

Her relationship with her parents has more or less recovered. It's her fault, really- Alicia knows it's her fault, can't deny that her parents have been astoundingly forgiving, all things considered, and there's no doubt in her mind that they are both going to be fantastic grandparents, whether they're still together by the time her daughter is born or not.

They just don't quite understand the whole way she's coping with this pregnancy. They're humouring her now better than they were a couple of weeks ago, when she first broke the news to them properly; Alicia is almost certain Bea has had a quiet word with them behind her back, because it's too good to be true, really. One minute they were constantly commenting on her size, saying all the wrong things and sending her mind into overdrive, attempting to touch her bump and shooting her strange looks at her reaction, and the next it had all stopped completely, and they weren't avoiding the whole thing, not quite, but they weren't making all the unhelpful comments she still can't seem to cope with, either.

Alicia knows they're upset. They're not making a big deal of it anymore, thank god, but she isn't stupid, knows full well her parents want nothing more than to feel their granddaughter moving, especially having lost out on so much of her pregnancy already. And there's no chance of them getting that experience now, of course, because she's their only child, and there's no way in hell she's having another baby.

One pregnancy is more than enough.

She knows she's upsetting them. And she's trying so hard to get her head around it all, but she just can't do it, not at the moment.

It's just all too much.

Her parents leave for their Mediterranean cruise, their latest attempt to rekindle their relationship, the morning of her first day back in work, and Alicia promises herself that by the time they're home, she'll have gotten over it all, will have managed to get herself to a stage at which she's able to give them what they want.

"So we'll be back in three and a half weeks," her mam reminds her, hugs her tightly, and it's painfully obvious she doesn't miss Alicia shifting sideways in her arms awkwardly. "We'll have signal sporadically, okay? We'll call you as often as we can. I'm sorry," she sighs. "I'm sorry, we never would have booked this if we'd known…"

Alicia shakes her head. "It's okay. Honestly, it's okay, I'll be fine. I've still got another six weeks, and that's worst-case scenario…"

"I know, but I don't like leaving you," her mam sighs.

"She'll be fine, Jackie," her dad tries. "Won't you, Scooby? Bea and Ruby will look after her, she'll be fine. And you can let me know when you want me to come over and do any furniture assembling when we're back, alright? Or anything else you need."

"Thank you," Alicia whispers. "I'm sorry. I know I've been…"

"You don't have to apologise," her mam tells her firmly. "It's alright. We understand, don't we, Howard? We're just glad you've told us now. And I can't wait to be a grandmother. Anything you need, you tell us, okay? We'll sort it once we're home. And make sure you're looking after yourself, won't you?" she reminds Alicia gently. "You need to be trying to slow down a bit now, I worry that you're still on night shifts…"

"I'll be fine, Mam," Alicia insists, hopes her parents don't detect the uncertainty in her tone. "I can cope with it, I'll be fine."

The locum Mrs Beauchamp has had in to cover for over the last two weeks, it turns out, has been let go now she's back in work.

Under normal circumstances, of course, it would make perfect sense. But they're still a consultant down, still no sign of anyone to replace Ethan, locum or otherwise, and with similar staffing problems in paeds, within just a couple of hours back in work it feels as though they're manning a sinking ship.

The frustrating part is that paeds have stepped up and sent more of their own staff down to the paeds ED over the past two weeks she's been off work, to help out the locum covering for her. Alicia knows they have, because Bea has told her as much. But now she's back in work, they're back to insisting that they're too understaffed to possibly spare anyone again, and she's back running the paeds ED single-handedly apart from Rash (who still needs considerable babysitting) and the nursing staff, while running down to the main ED at regular intervals and carrying the paeds crash bleep.

It's not exactly ideal, and just to make matters worse, it's Friday night and the ED is stupidly overcrowded, major incident in resus so she can't even borrow staff from the main ED when she's struggling to deal with paeds with only Rash to help her, can't babysit when she's already dealing with too many patients of her own, exhausted already, feels as though she's had no time off of work at all.

And just to make matters worse, all the argumentative parents and sullen teenagers from hell seem to have picked tonight of all nights to descend upon paeds.

"Alicia, I need to borrow you in resus, please," Dylan announces, appears in the paeds corridor. "I know, I know you're understaffed in here, but Dr Masum is going to have to cope on his own for a few minutes. We've got an unaccompanied teenager en route, ETA two minutes, involved in an RTC fifteen minutes ago, hit off the pavement. No ID, no one at the scene seems to know him, I'd take it myself but we're struggling in resus, if you could just deal with primary survey, CT and get him up to PICU, that would be great. Duffy's working on getting him a bed now."

Alicia sighs, looks across to Rash struggling with an uncooperative toddler.

"I'll be fine," he insists brightly. "Honestly, don't worry. I'll be fine."

Alicia wishes she shared his confidence.

The teenager from the RTC is going to be touch and go.

He's going to be one of those patients she'll check up on with PICU later and it could have gone either way, it's painfully obvious just from primary survey, and for some reason it's bothering her far more than it normally would.

Perhaps it's maternal instinct beginning to kick in. Perhaps it's because his parents, wherever they are, are still oblivious and they're no closer to tracking them down, because she knows that once they're here, once they know, they'll be feeling exactly how she will in a couple of months' time, confronted with their child in an intensive care bed, helpless, and for the first time, Alicia can imagine exactly how they're feeling, because that's going to be her, that's going to be the situation she'll find herself in sooner or later and she always knew it would be awful, of course she did, after all these years of emergency medicine, but never like this.

She's going to have to take him up to CT and on to PICU alone, before his parents turn up. Unless they make a breakthrough soon, but there's been no update from the police since he was brought in, since she took over from the paramedics, he could have lied to his parents, told them he was sleeping over at a friends' and headed off to goodness only knows where when the collision happened and they'll be none the wiser until tomorrow, unless they're watching the news, and what if they aren't…

She loves this job. She really, truly does, can't picture herself doing anything else and she wouldn't trade it for the world, as much as she complains about it sometimes.

It's just rather difficult to love it as much as she usually does when she's being pulled in about a hundred different directions all at once, and she's still waiting for her promised regular breaks and she's sure they won't be coming any time soon because they're stupidly understaffed, and there's a head or an arm or _something_ wedged into her ribcage and she's being kicked like crazy and she's so bloody uncomfortable, sick of sharing her body with another human being and her back is aching and she's only a few hours into this shift and she's still got to struggle through until the morning, and it feels as though her hips are being wrenched apart and she's absolutely enormous and she's sick of all of this, just wants to go home and curl up in front of the sofa and put some rubbish televizija on and hide away until she goes into labour.

But then that won't work either. That will only make everything worse, Alicia is sure it will, because she hasn't exactly enjoyed every moment of the last two weeks, either. At the start, it was exactly what she needed, and she could relax- not properly, but a little, at least, for the first time since this whole nightmare situation began. She's started to get her head around the fact that she's going to be a mam in a few weeks' time, and there was a time not so long ago she never thought she'd manage it. But the mere thought of spending the rest of her pregnancy sitting around waiting for something to happen is enough to send her into a panic. She needs to keep herself busy, needs a distraction from it all, wouldn't want to trade the next three weeks in work for early maternity leave under any circumstances whatsoever.

She just wishes it wasn't all quite so demanding at the moment. She truly doesn't know if she can struggle through a whole shift like this, not a moment to herself even to use the bathroom (and at thirty weeks, her organs are so squashed that she's just going to have to run off out of resus and leave them all to cope without her for a few minutes if she doesn't get an opportunity soon, and if anyone wants to complain they can try a twelve-hour shift heavily pregnant and see how they like it).

"Okay," Alicia sighs, finally satisfied with the boujee intubation, reluctantly accepting that there's really not an awful lot more she can do now, out of her hands once she's got the CT over with and there's news of a PICU bed. "GCS is still four, but his sats are improving. We're going to need orthopaedics to take a look, but let's just get him up to CT for now, I'm more worried about the head injury for the moment. Gem, can you give me a hand?"

She winces, hand moves to her bump involuntarily, before she quite realises what she's done, uncomfortable, heavy, throbbing sensation under her ribs and pounding against her bladder and she's so sick of all this, just wants to jump forward a few weeks and have an actual, healthy baby, skip the rest of this pregnancy, skip the SCBU part, the surgery, the recovery, skip everything.

"Are you alright?" Gem worries. "I can find someone else to deal with this, if you want to…"

Alicia shakes her head, busies herself with the oxygen. "I'm fine. I'm fine, she's just kicking me like crazy."

"Can I feel?" Gem asks hopefully.

"No, you can't!" Alicia snaps, wraps her arms around her bump defensively. "Can you just help me get him down to CT, please."

Gem rolls her eyes, holds her hands up in a gesture that makes it perfectly clear she thinks Alicia is being ridiculous. "Fine. Should you really be pushing a trolley, though…"

"I've been doing it for the last six months! I am _fine_ , it's not an illness, for god's sake. Can we just get him to CT before they give his spot to someone else, I'm not going to tell you again. Jade, can you try and get hold of his next of kin again, please?" Alicia takes hold of the side of her patient's trolley, waits for Gem to take the other, follows out into the corridor towards the lift.

"I'm just saying," Gem says quietly, as the lift doors close. "That's what you said last time, and then it came out that you weren't at all…"

"Right, well I'll let you know if she stops hiccupping and digging into my ribs, shall I?" Alicia retorts sarcastically, decides all the while her patient is unconscious she doesn't care, as unprofessional as it might be. "And if you want, I can warn you about all the shitty discharge crap no one ever talks about, while I'm at it, and how my ankles are ridiculously huge and six months of solid morning sickness is totally a thing? And don't even get me going on the Braxton Hicks. Do yourself a favour and use birth control, pregnancy's seriously shit."

"You don't mean that."

"I absolutely do, Gem, don't push it. Believe me, I cannot wait for this to be over. Oh, don't look at me like that, you try working stupidly irregular night shifts lugging an extra stone's worth of weight around with you all the time and see how you like it."

"A _stone_?" Gem repeats as the lift comes to a halt, eyes wide with horror. "I thought babies only weighed…"

"About seven pounds full term, yep, they do. But think about it." Alicia rolls her eyes. "It's not just the baby part, it's all the other crap that comes with it."

"You're literally putting me off having kids. Like ever."

"Nah, don't listen to me. You'll be fine. It'll be… it'll be completely different for you, you'll have Rash to make you feel better about all this stuff," Alicia blurts out before she can help herself, suddenly realises that perhaps she's said too much as the lift doors open. "Right, let's get him into CT."

"Alicia…"

"Gem, come on, we haven't got time for this. I am _fine_. Okay? And I'd be even better if everyone would just stop trying to interfere."

"When are you having your baby?" her latest paeds patient asks curiously.

"Not for another ten weeks, I hope." She tries to put on her best talking-to-children voice, light, patient, reassuring, but somehow, it doesn't come out quite the way she intended. "I need you to lean forwards for me, please, I'm going to examine your back first. Is that okay?"

Her patient nods. "Are you having a baby boy or a baby girl?"

"A baby girl. I'm going to listen to your chest now, okay? Stay nice and still."

"What are you going to call your baby?"

"Oh, I haven't decided yet," Alicia lies. "I've got a few more weeks to think about that. And can you blow into this for me, for as long as you can? That's it, you're doing really, really well, aren't you? I'd like to keep him in for a bit longer for observation," she explains to her patient's mother. "And he'll need referring to the asthma clinic. But his resps are looking much better, his blood oxygen levels are fine now. I'll be back to check on him again later."

Ten minutes, Alicia tells herself, makes a beeline for the corridor. Surely, they can manage without her for ten minutes? Or as long as it takes her to disappear off to the bathroom, make herself a coffee and drink most of it, anyway- all of it might be a bit of a stretch.

The paeds crash bleep wails loudly in her pocket.

Alicia sighs, heads of towards the lift as fast as her body will allow her.

"Does it count as running with the crash bleep if you're basically just waddling?" Jade calls after her, laughing with Marty at the admin station.

"I do _not_ waddle," Alicia snaps, shoots them both her best death glare as the lift doors close.

She knows she's fooling no one, but all the same, keeping up with the denial act makes her feel better.

"Excuse me!" a frustrated voice shouts after her as she finally makes it back down into the ED again, sabotages her attempts to slip away into the staffroom for a moment of peace. "I've been waiting for almost three hours now!"

Alicia sighs, abandons her plans for a five-minute break, turns to the elderly man following her down the corridor. "I'm sorry, we are incredibly busy this evening…"

"And I was supposed to be seen at five this afternoon! It's almost eight now…"

"I think you misunderstood," Alicia tries, forces herself to keep her tone from betraying her frustration. "We don't give out exact times to our patients, our policy is we see everyone within four hours but unfortunately we do have to prioritise when…"

"Well, you've given me an exact time on my appointment letter!"

Alicia groans internally, prepares herself for a fight. "Can I see? Right, this is A and E," she explains, fights to keep her tone as calm as possible, knows what she'll have to tell the man in front of her next is not going to be well-received in the slightest. "Your appointment was with Cardiology at five, Cardiology is upstairs…"

"They told me at reception to go to the end of the corridor…"

"And take the lift up to level three," Alicia finishes for him. "This is children's A and E, this definitely isn't Cardiology. They would have told you to take the lift…"

"They definitely didn't!"

"They definitely did," Alicia sighs. "This isn't Cardiology, this is the Paeds ED. Cardiology is upstairs. There won't be anyone up there to see you now, I imagine you would have been the last appointment for today…"

"Well, they'll just have to fit me in now, I've come all the way from…"

"It doesn't matter how far you've travelled, I'm afraid, whoever your appointment was with will be long gone by now. The best we can do at this point is…"

"No, I'm not leaving until I've seen someone! No one told me I was in the wrong place, someone should have told me! You must be able to do my appointment here, if this is A and E…"

"This is Paeds A and E," Alicia corrects him. "But even in the main ED, no, I'm sorry. We can't. We're accident and emergency, not general medicine. Like I said, we can leave a message with cardiology and have someone call you on Monday to schedule another appointment, but that's really all we can do."

"Well, that's just not good enough! I'm eighty-seven, you know, I've paid my taxes into the NHS, why you lot can't even make sure I'm in the right place…"

It's another half an hour before she finally manages to escape to the staffroom, rummages through the cupboards but there are no mugs left, no matter how hard she searches.

Alicia blames the man from Cardiology incapable of following basic instructions. Perhaps that's unfair of her, but it took her so long to calm him down and finally persuade him out of the hospital, she's sure there would have been mugs left unclaimed if only she'd managed to avoid him, leave him for someone else to deal with.

Sighing, she treks off to the locker rooms, searches there instead for her reusable cup she's left goodness only knows where, ends up raiding Ethan's locker for his abandoned one instead (and she needs to clear Ethan's locker out before Mrs Beauchamp brings it up, she knows she has to, but she just can't quite bring herself to do it).

She's just tired of it all. She's exhausted, and she feels weighed down and uncomfortable and she's not even halfway into her first shift back and she's already sick of the way everyone's looking at her and she can't deal with the attention, she just can't do it, it just makes her feel so self-conscious and she's trying so hard but she still feels like she's the size of an ugly whale and it's all completely and utterly shit…

She can't do this. She just can't do this, and it's as though something's clicked inside her head, as though all of a sudden, she can't keep ignoring it anymore but she doesn't want to acknowledge it properly either, doesn't know what to do…

She wants him. That's all she wants. She just wants him, because she meant what she told Gem, she really did. This wouldn't be so bad if she wasn't having to do it all by herself, and yes, she has Bea and Ruby, and they understand, and she has her mam and dad and they don't quite understand but it's so clear that they're trying, but none of it's the same, she can't exactly complain to them that her breasts feel fucking massive and her ankles are so swollen it's ridiculous and she's afraid everything is going to take forever to shrink back to normal after she's finally given birth and what if that messes with her head again, undoes all of the progress she's managed to make over the last few weeks and what if she can't get over it, what if she just keeps getting worse and worse and she can't look after her baby, can't feed her, what then…

Slowly, quietly, exhausted, Alicia makes her way to the end of the locker room, locks herself in the nearest cubicle.

She's named her now, in her head. She's still trying desperately hard not to allow herself to get too attached, still trying to stop herself from using it in her mind every time she thinks of her, but it's far too late. She's already set her heart upon it, more or less, still wants to wait until she's born, just to be sure, just in case it doesn't suit her- is that even a thing? She'll be a tiny, poorly baby, is it even possible for a name to suit her or not? Either way, she wants to wait until she sees her before she's absolutely adamant it's going to be her name, just to be sure.

That, and it feels like tempting fate. She can't quite get herself out of that mind-set, no matter how hard she tries. Rationally, she does know, realises that the chances of her baby not surviving the surgery are incredibly slim, at this point, but she can't allow herself to believe it.

Not just yet.

Maybe that's why it's all become a little more bearable over the last couple of weeks. She still can't allow herself to relax completely, but at the same time it all feels a little more real now, as though there's an actual baby growing inside her, not just a hindrance, something she finally seems to be able to separate from all the rest of the mess going on inside her head.

She's going to be a mother in ten weeks. She's going to have a tiny baby that's _hers_ in ten weeks' time, and she never would have planned for it to all happen like this, couldn't imagine how she was possibly going to struggle on just a few weeks ago, but she wouldn't give up her baby for anything, not now.

She just wishes she didn't have to do it all without him.

Alicia lowers herself down onto the cubicle bench, leans back, closes her eyes for a moment, resists the temptation to hide away in the locker room for the rest of her shift, enjoy the peace and the tranquillity for a while, too drained to head back out into the chaos of Friday night in A and E.

She can't even say she's going to miss this place once she's on maternity leave, because she's going to be seeing even more of it than she usually would, for the first few weeks, at least.

Not the maternity unit. There's no way she's hanging around in there for a moment longer than necessary, if they think she's having a caesarean and doing the whole in overnight thing, they can forget it.

She's got it all worked out. She hasn't made it as far as discussing it with Bea and Ruby, let alone the midwife, knows exactly what they'll say, but it will be fine, Alicia tells herself. She's not telling the midwife full stop, has accepted at this point there's no way they're ever going to have a good relationship, but she's got another ten weeks to talk Bea and Ruby around. She'll delay going anywhere near the hospital until the last possible moment- she knows what she's doing with labour from an ED doctor's perspective, after all, it'll be fine. She can monitor her labour herself, let Bea and Ruby check her over if they're home and they absolutely insist, wait until her contractions are three minutes apart and then she'll call Bea and let her take her into hospital, and hope and pray that by the time she's admitted and assessed she'll be fully dilated and she can deliver, endure whatever she must right after and be up in SCBU with her baby as soon as possible.

She's not leaving her.

Alicia doesn't care what anyone says, she's not leaving her baby upstairs in SBCU for a moment longer than necessary.

Slowly, anxiously, she looks down, and it feels like she's opening up a Pandora's box, finally confronting something she knows full well she's gone to ridiculous lengths to avoid over the last few months and she's not sure she really wants to do this, not sure it isn't just going to make everything worse again but against her better judgement she's suddenly determined to do it, morbid fascination, almost, like observing a particularly grim, complex, bloody injury in cubicles and pretending to Rash or Bea or one of the new F1s that she's in there watching because they need it for their portfolio but in reality she's doing it purely because she can, because she's trying to work out for the life of her how on earth the patient managed to do it and she's purely curious, that fascination with the revolting that led to medical school rather than the pure biology she briefly contemplated during her GCSEs.

She doesn't know if she can do this. She doesn't know if she _wants_ to do this, never mind if she can…

It's not as awful as she thought it might be.

Maybe it's the hospital scrubs disguising it a little, softening the blow, but she doesn't look as enormous as she feels, as she's been absolutely convinced she was for the last few weeks. Maybe they're not all looking at her and thinking she looks like a whale on steroids after all, maybe that was just an unfortunate moment to walk past Jade and Marty at the admin station when she finally got back from the cardiac arrest in PICU; it was painfully clear from the look of panic and embarrassment on their faces that she definitely wasn't supposed to overhear that particular comment, even more so from the looks on their faces as she laid into them angrily that they knew they deserved everything they were going to get, especially after their earlier dig at her.

She doesn't look huge. She looks… pregnant, and she still doesn't like it, and she doesn't care if that makes her the worst mother in the world; she's moved past that now, finally accepted that this is the way she feels and it's okay, she doesn't have to justify it, and yes, she probably has the counselling and Ruby's yoga classes to thank for that. But it's not awful. Not completely, at least.

It's only for another ten weeks, Alicia reminds herself. And then she's never, ever doing this again, under absolutely no circumstances.

She can't understand how some women go through two pregnancies, let alone multiple.

Surely nine months of this is enough to put anyone off for life?

She's not entirely sure what makes her do it.

It's that morbid curiosity again, almost as though she's lost patience with herself, can't understand why she's being so ridiculous about the whole thing and in that moment, she just wants to confront it, doesn't care if it makes everything worse again or not, just needs to do it, get it over with, needs to be able to tell herself that it hasn't defeated her, that she's not completely pathetic.

It's not pathetic, Alicia tries to remind herself. Bea and Ruby have told her that, the counsellor has told her that. Mrs Beauchamp has told her that- because she was there, Alicia remembers with a shudder, Mrs Beauchamp was there when she had her total flu-induced meltdown and accidentally let it all out.

All the same, she still hasn't quite managed to convince herself that they're right.

She lifts her scrub top anxiously, suddenly feeling rather horribly sick, blinks, closes her eyes, just for a moment.

She opens.

It doesn't feel as though she's looking at her own body. Perhaps that's her fault, perhaps it wouldn't have been like this if only she'd not avoided it for so long, perhaps she wouldn't be feeling as strangely repulsed as she does now- because that's the only word for it, that's how she feels, and she's never felt like this when it's her patients. It just looks… distended, and disgusting, skin stretched thinly and she doesn't like it, doesn't want to think about it because it's making her feel sick, and that's only making her feel even worse on top of it all because she knows she shouldn't feel like this, and it's all going to get out of control again and she'll be stuck in a vicious cycle she can't escape…

She was imagining an awful lot worse, admittedly, and that's somewhat reassuring. She's been avoiding the stretch mark cream Ruby left on her bedside table for weeks (and she knows it was Ruby, it must have leaving it unannounced, quietly, is so much more Ruby's style than Bea's) and she knows it's stupid, knows she's more than likely going to regret her stubborn avoidance given the damned thing has been right next to her for at least a month but it's not that simple, it's just not that simple… But it isn't that bad. She was expecting worse. She's not enormous, mercifully seems to have managed to avoid the worst of the stretch marks, and it's ten more weeks, Alicia reminds herself, it's only for ten more weeks.

She can do this. She can do this, of course she can.

She has to do this.

Something ripples lightly under her skin, and it startles her at first; she's used to the physical sensation that accompanies it by this point but she's been so successful in avoiding having to look until now that it takes her completely by surprise, grotesque and alien and she still can't quite accept that it's an actual baby, her baby, that she's supposed to be enjoying this.

It shouldn't have been like this. Ethan should have been here, and it would have gone differently, maybe… maybe she wouldn't have felt like this if he'd been here, or maybe she would have but his reassurance would have been enough. They would have actively looked for this, treasured this, she wouldn't have felt as horribly uncomfortable in her own body as she does now because he would have been there, he would have told her she was beautiful even when she knew she wasn't…

Gently, Alicia presses against the small bulge jutting out below her belly button, guilt flooding through her all over again.

She's supposed to be talking to her, isn't she? Or something like that. She's supposed to be making sure her baby knows her voice but the whole talking to her before she's even born thing just makes her feel ridiculous and she hasn't been trying, her daughter is only going to know her voice from when she's interacting with patients and stressed out of her mind or at home with Bea and Ruby and moaning about something or other and being a total moody cow, god only knows how they haven't given up with her and found themselves somewhere else to live…

A tiny foot, or knee, or hand, or whatever it is nudges back, almost as though trying to reassure her.

Alicia thinks it might just be the sweetest thing in the world.

 **I know it's been forever again, I'm so sorry! This chapter took on a life of its own and ended up twice as long as I'd planned for it to be or you would have had it last week. I'm really trying to give you more medical based chapters before Alicia goes on maternity leave and I seem to be totally incapable of writing short medical sections. But I hope this chapter makes up for it. I think I've told you before I'm in the East again at the moment, I'm going home in a few days so I will have more time to write then too.**

 **Thank you as ever to Katie, Guest and BrightWrites for reviewing the last chapter, I know I say this every time, but I am so grateful you're still following this story! BrightWrites- to answer your question, yes, there will be a chapter very soon showing the stair fall, and then everything will come together :)**

 **I've had a couple of DMs about this lately so just to say it here too- please never, ever feel worried about posting Ethan and Alicia fan fiction. This is honestly the most wonderful supportive community I've ever written for, and I would love to read more Ethan and Alicia so you have at least one guaranteed review already :) And I'm sure I'm not the only one!**

 **Reviews would be wonderful- particularly so to know that I still have readers left, because I know I've left you waiting for ages again! I'm sorry!**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	46. Chapter 46

**Chapter 46**

"Mammy?"

Chakra appears in the kitchen doorway anxiously, fidgets, clutching her elephant to her chest- and that's a bad sign in itself, Alicia realises with a sinking feeling in her stomach, they graduated from the carrying a stuffed animal around during the daytime stage a long time ago.

"Hmm? You can come in Chak, what are you standing there for?" Alicia tries, reaches out, grabs Chakra's hand as she approaches the kitchen table."

"You're talking to Ethan, though," Chakra points out, leans into Alicia's side shyly, glances between her two parents sat at the kitchen table.

"And you can come and join us whenever you want to, Chakra, okay?" Ethan covers hurriedly. "You mustn't ever feel you can't talk to Mummy just because I'm here, do you promise you'll remember that? Do you want me to leave you and Mummy for a bit? I don't mind, I can…"

Chakra shakes her head. "Mammy, I don't want to go to gym."

"You don't? Well, that's not like you, is it? Can you tell me why?" Alicia asks carefully, squeezes Chakra's shoulders. "I might be able to do something about it if you tell me why. We managed to sort your show costume, didn't we?"

Chakra shrugs. "I…" She shakes her head. "I just don't want to go, Mammy…"

"Is it because you're worried you're going to struggle with your… your thing, again?" She's clutching at straws now, doesn't even know the proper terminology and usually she wouldn't even try, but this is scaring her now, seems to be spiralling hopelessly out of control and she doesn't know how to stop it.

It's the one place she's never struggled to get her, apart from that one time a couple of weeks back, but they sorted that- and Alicia can't blame her, not really, not when there's no way in hell she would be willing to go anywhere near a stage in a costume that's essentially just a glorified bikini either. But other than that, she's never known Chakra reluctant to enter Miss Yekaterina's domain, and god only knows why when the woman is so completely terrifying, but she does, and if she can't even get her to Miss Yekaterina's…

Chakra blinks at her, confused.

"Oh, you know what I mean, right? I'm not very good at the terminology stuff, I think we learned that much when I did Miss Yekaterina's adult class last week."

Chakra smiles faintly. "Miss Yekaterina said you have nice feet and better flexibility than she was expecting, but you kept mixing up tendus and fondues."

"See, I told you. I've always been rubbish at French, I told you I failed my French GCSE, didn't I? I've never been all that great at any kind of terminology, to be honest, it always took me twice as long to memorise the names for everything when I was in medical school."

"It wasn't one thing I couldn't do on Monday," Chakra says quietly, eyes suddenly fixed firmly on the kitchen floor, serious again. "I couldn't do _anything_ properly on Monday…"

"And today will be different, okay? You'll see. You've been eating properly today, haven't you, you must have some actual energy now, right? Yeah?"

Chakra nods slowly.

"See? Life is so much better when you actually have energy to enjoy it, isn't it? So I bet you anything, you're going to be able to do everything beautifully today, and if you can't, you will next time. Okay?"

"I can't though, Mammy…"

"Hey, yes you can. I know you can, I've been to your gym competitions, remember? I know you're brilliant. You need to just stop worrying, don't you? You and Ethan are really, really good at that. But I don't want to make you do anything you do, you know that, right? So if you aren't enjoying it anymore, then that's totally fine, you just have to tell me and you won't have to go anymore. But I don't think it's that, am I right?"

Chakra shakes her head, agitated.

"Okay. Okay, well, that's something, isn't it? At least you know what you don't want, right?" Alicia remembers this feeling only too well- the confusion, the anxiousness, the desperate need to explain, to let it all out but no words to describe it, the crippling unhappiness…

She can't think about that, Alicia tells herself firmly, shudders. She just can't allow herself to think about that, not when it's Chakra. It's too upsetting, there's no way she's going to be any use to her daughter whatsoever if she allows herself to think about that a moment longer.

"So we're getting somewhere, aren't we? Yeah?" Alicia glances across to Ethan, knows full well the look of worry and pain and frustration she's going to see there because she feels to too; they're her parents and they should be able to protect her from this, and they can't… they can't…

Chakra wraps her arms around Alicia's neck, clings tightly. "I'm scared I won't be able to do anything properly and Miss Yekaterina will be angry."

"And that's not going to happen," Alicia promises her. "What if I talk to her when I drop you off, would that make you feel better? I can explain to her that you're still not feeling totally back to normal just yet, she'll understand. Would you want to go if you knew Miss Yekaterina definitely wasn't going to be angry with you?"

Chakra pauses, contemplates. "I don't like doing things really badly when I know I can do them properly."

"No, I don't like doing that, either," Ethan agrees. "But you might enjoy seeing your friends, do you think? Maybe? It doesn't matter if you don't do everything perfectly all the time, you know that, right? You're only seven, you've got your whole life ahead of you to worry about doing things perfectly."

"I'm eight in two weeks."

"Yep, you are," Alicia agrees. "And usually I tell all my patients that eight is a really, really grown up age, but I think actually, we need to remind you that eight's still far too young to be getting yourself so anxious about these things, don't we? You don't have to do everything perfectly all the time, okay? You're only human, none of us are perfect all the time. And it doesn't matter, alright? I promise it doesn't. You've got years and years before you have to worry about how well you do things. You're seven. I don't want you worrying about how well you do things until you're at least sixteen."

"Why sixteen?"

"Because sixteen's when you have to do your GCSEs. But even then, there's no point getting stupidly anxious, is there? Nothing in life is worth that, okay? Nothing. Ethan and I love you, and we think you're brilliant, and we're so proud of you, and nothing's ever going to change that. And Miss Yekaterina understands, she knows… you've had a really rubbish few months," Alicia concludes at last, can't think of a better way of putting it without having to address the elephant in the room, and maybe she should, maybe they should stop shying away from it and call it what it is, but Chakra is seven, and she's still too young to understand, really, young enough that Alicia is afraid complicated words she can't fully understand will only make it worse.

They can't make a huge deal out of this. That's the one thing she has been sure about, throughout this nightmare. They need to downplay it as far as possible, need to try to normalise it as much as they can, can't allow Chakra to realise how serious this is, need to try to ease her through it and she can't see how else it's possible.

Chakra blinks uncertainly. "So… so you could talk to Miss Yekaterina…"

"Yep. Yep, I can talk to Miss Yekaterina when I drop you at gym, and I'll explain, and I promise as long as you try your best, she won't be angry with you if all your fancy spin things aren't perfect. She'll understand. And then you can decide whether you want to do your competition on Saturday later, okay? There's no pressure, it's completely down to you. But you can still go tonight and try, and you can see all your friends, can't you? Would you be happy with that?"

Chakra nods, visibly relieved. "Thank you."

"Hey, that's okay. I'm your mam, it's my job to make everything better, isn't it?" Alicia lies, can't quite admit even to herself that there are some things she just can't fix. "So shall we do that, then? Can you go and get changed into your gym stuff, and I'll make you some food and then I'll take you to gym? Yeah?"

"Do I _have_ to have food first?"

"Yep, you do, or we don't have a deal. Go on, then. I think you've probably got clean gym stuff upstairs, but if you haven't, tell me and I'll raid the laundry basket, okay? I've done the washing, obviously," she confesses to Ethan, embarrassed, once Chakra has disappeared up the stairs. "Just haven't got as far as actually putting it away yet."

"I'm not judging," Ethan insists gently. "You've had the week from hell, I think you're amazing just to be…"

Alicia shakes her head. "I never do mess, though, the last time I let things get out of control messy was when I had… you know. In Manchester. And the time before that was…"

"I know," Ethan says quietly, squeezes her hand protectively. "I know. You're doing fine, Leesh. You doing more than fine, you're doing brilliantly. And you can tell me. If you're struggling, if you're worried you're going to hit breaking point again, then you can tell me. You're not doing it on your own this time."

"It's not going to come to that. I… I can't fall apart," Alicia tells him firmly. "Not this time. Chakra needs me to…"

"Chakra needs you to be looking after yourself too," Ethan points out gently. "You're her mum. I… I know I'm her dad, biologically, but I'm not her _dad_ , you know? And I really hope I will be, one day. But I can't be what you can to her right now. I don't know how to comfort her like you do, I wouldn't even know where to start. She needs you. But she needs you healthy. So you need to tell me if you're struggling too, okay? Or your mum, or Bea or Ruby, or whoever. But someone. And if… you're going to be out all evening, right?"

"There's probably not going to be much point me coming home in the middle, no. Not… I'm going to stay for a while after I drop her off, just in case she has a total meltdown again and she wants to come home. And then I seem to have committed myself to the next few weeks of terrifying adult ballet for beginners, Ruby's going to bring Chakra home, if I can get her to stay there for her whole practice, anyway. But no, there's not really much point me coming back here in the middle by the time I've got Chakra sorted, I might just go to the gym for half an hour, or something. Ruby's used to getting her to bed, you can leave Chak to her if you want or, you know, do as much with her as you feel comfortable with."

"Okay." Ethan turns her hand over in his carefully, pulls her in closer. "So let me know what I can do. I mean, some things are a bit… beyond me now, you know, with everything. But I can certainly manage sorting out the laundry, or something, if that would help…"

"You don't have to do that, Ethan…"

"I know. I know, but I want to," Ethan insists. "You've been doing everything by yourself for the last eight years, I think the least I can do is unload the dishwasher. Or I can tidy the living room…"

"What, all Chakra's Lego stuff? No, leave that," Alicia tells him quickly. "I'm trying to get her to tidy her own stuff away when she's done without having to be told a million times, if she works out you're prepared to do it for her, you'll never get her to do it herself again."

"Got it." Ethan sighs softly. "I've missed so much, I don't have a clue what I'm doing…"

"Yes, you do," Alicia insists. "Okay, so maybe a month ago you didn't have a clue what you were doing," she teases. "But you do now. You're learning, another couple of months and you'll be a pro, you'll see. I don't have a clue what I'm doing half the time either, really, I'm just making it all up as I go along and hoping for the best. She loves you, and you want it to work out, so it will, okay? That's really all that matters. You just need to give it time."

Ethan nods. "Do you think she's going to be alright?" he worries. "She seems…."

"I know," Alicia sighs. "I know. I think she'll feel better, if she does go. Even if she just goes to see her friends and doesn't actually do all that much. I just…" She groans, closes her eyes. "She was always going to be a bit of a perfectionist, wasn't she, with us two as parents. With any decent medics as parents, really, let's face it. I just don't want her working herself up into a total state about it. I mean, she's obviously not living up to her gym coach's scarily high expectations because she's not been eating properly for months and it's finally all caught up with her, isn't she? She likes it there, she's happy there- god only knows why, I would have run a mile from anyone half as strict as her gym coach at her age. But she does. And the last thing she needs is to freak herself out about going to gym too, she's not really encountering kids her age outside of her gym sessions at the moment. I just worry it's going to be even harder for her to reintegrate if she ends up totally isolated while we try and get this under control. And she needs some normality, doesn't she? She's… she's only seven, Ethan," she despairs. "She's not even eight yet, if she's like this now, what on earth is she going to be like when she's sixteen…"

"She'll be fine," Ethan murmurs, though his face betrays him. "She'll be absolutely fine by the time she's sixteen, we'll get her through this. She's just… I don't know, she's getting her teenage crisis out her system early, we just need to negotiate the next few months and then the teenage years will be a breeze."

"You reckon? I had…" Alicia shakes her head. "It's stupid. I'm just being stupid, it doesn't matter…"

"Tell me?"

Alicia sighs. "I had… when I was pregnant with Chak… it wasn't the first time," she admits quietly. "I had… I don't know… body image issues, I guess, when I was about sixteen, or something, my eating habits were a bit all over the place. It wasn't serious, it really wasn't. It was a few months, if that, it was mild, I got over it pretty quickly. Nothing like… well. You know. And I don't think there's a teenage girl on the planet who doesn't, is there? Not many, anyway. And I don't think it's connected, as such. I mean, maybe I'm… I don't know, maybe there is something in the genetic argument, maybe I was always going to be predisposed to it, maybe there was never going to be much hope for Chakra, either. I don't know. But I just… I just worry we're going to go through all this again with her in a few years. And it's going to be more serious, isn't it, most teenage girls haven't already had a full-blown eating disorder before they were even in double figures, and then we're going to have to send her off to uni, if that's what she decides she wants to do, and she's probably going to be in some remote corner of Ireland digging up Celtic artefacts, or something, and we won't be able to do anything if she…"

"You're getting ahead of yourself," Ethan tells her gently, tugs on her hand, pulls her into his chest. "She's not even eight yet, Leesh. We've got, what, another ten years before she goes off to university, another nine if she decides she wants to take a gap year and wander through the Scottish Highlands looking for mystic energy, or something…"

She smiles, despite it all. "See, you've worked her out already."

"She'll be fine," Ethan whispers, must have heard the gentle creaking from above them too, small feet on the stairs. "We've got years before she's a teenager. And we're going to be more on top of it when she does reach that point, aren't we, having gone through all this. And she's… well, she might have to put up with us checking up on her more than we would have when she moves out, but that's years off, there's no point worrying about that just yet." His face falls, suddenly defeated. "If I'm even still… you know. Still here."

Alicia grips onto him tightly, wordless, numb.

What can she possibly say?

The house is silent when she finally staggers home several hours later, and if it weren't for the faint glow through the living room curtains as she approached the front door, Alicia might have thought Ethan had taken a turn for the worse and gone to bed without her.

She needs to talk to him about the TV volume thing, Alicia ponders to herself, kicks off her shoes, avoids calling out to him in fear of waking Chakra. That's partly why she moved Chakra's room up to the second floor, after all; shouting is obviously pushing it a little too far, but as a general rule she can have Bea and Ruby and whoever else over and make a little too much noise and she won't stir, there's no reason for him to have the TV volume microscopically low past their daughter's bedtime.

She's about to push open the living room door when she hears it.

Hushed voices, gentle, soothing, and Alicia groans internally, instantly feels guilty for having texted Ruby and told her to feel free to leave Chakra under Ethan's supervision when she didn't manage to catch her running into Miss Yekaterina's adult ballet class.

She should have predicted this, Alicia curses. She shouldn't have said anything, should have just let Ruby assume she should stay as usual, and yes, it might have been a little awkward between Ethan and Ruby, partly what she was trying to avoid, but she should have realised this was going to be a problem. Ethan has only just managed to get his head around interacting with Chakra on a basic level, for goodness sake, she should have realised Ethan was going to be completely out of his depth if he had to deal with their daughter again after Ruby got her into bed, that nightmares and worrying about god only knows what are still far beyond his remit, she was stupid…

She pushes open the living room door to find Ruby and Chakra curled up on the sofa together, Ethan sat across from them, pizza boxes and discarded tissues and other assorted chaos strewn across the coffee table.

Ruby jumps, visibly startled, face a picture of guilt, and it's dark, lights dimmed, takes a moment for Alicia to realise her eyes are red, face tear-stained.

"I'm sorry!" she apologises anxiously. "I'm so sorry, I know it's well past Chakra's bedtime, I was going to take her back up in a minute, I never usually…"

"Auntie Ruby's feeling sad," says Chakra, cuddles into Ruby's side, shoots her mother a pleading look in protest.

"I'm just being silly," Ruby apologises, seemingly tries to pull herself together and only ends up crying harder. "I need to pull myself together, I'll be fine in…"

"No, no, you're not. What's wrong?" Alicia asks, lowers herself down on the sofa to the other side of Ruby, wraps her arm around her shoulders, mildly alarmed when it doesn't seem to make the slightest difference, Ruby approaching hyperventilation territory now. "Hey, it's okay. It's okay, whatever it is, we can fix it. It'll be alright…"

Ruby shakes her head desperately. "It can't be…"

"Hey, yes, it will," Alicia insists gently, reaches for the tissues. "It will, you'll see. What's happened? Ruby?"

Ruby shakes her head, sobs, wipes at her eyes furiously.

"Auntie Ruby's boyfriend doesn't want to be her boyfriend anymore," Chakra explains quietly, squeezes Ruby's hand.

"Well, I'm not sure he was ever really my boyfriend," Ruby corrects her between sobs, eyes suddenly fixed on the carpet. "We'd only been on a couple of dates, I really shouldn't be reacting like this…"

"We've been through this," Ethan reminds her gently. "We've been through this, haven't we, you're perfectly entitled to be upset. He… didn't exactly go about it in the nicest way," Ethan explains, glances across to Ruby sympathetically. "I mean, you don't really need to give much of an explanation, do you, if you decide it's not for you after the third date, there's no need to go in for a full-on character assault…"

"Ethan said Auntie Ruby's date is an arseh…"

"Yes, and we agreed, didn't we, that's a bad word and I shouldn't have said it in front of you, and you promised you aren't going to be using it, right?" Ethan covers quickly.

"It's true though. Auntie Ruby deserves someone much nicer than he is."

Ruby laughs softly through her tears. "When did you get so good at relationship advice?"

"When Auntie Bea broke up with Katie, and Holly, and when she really liked Lauren but then it turned out Lauren already had a girlfriend," says Chakra innocently. "And when Hannah dumped her in front of the whole ED and we had to bring her home with us and we had ice cream for dinner, and then we made the Viking bonfire and we wrote down the names of all Auntie Bea's exes on pieces of paper and we..."

"Yep, alright, missy, we don't want Ethan thinking we're running some sort of sisterhood witches' convent, do we?" Alicia covers quickly. "Are you going to go and get ready for bed, then? Yeah? Good girl, I'll come up and say goodnight in a minute."

"I'm so sorry," Ruby apologises through her tears. "I'm so sorry, I was… I was like this, when I drove her home, I tried to get her to go to bed, well, we both did, and she wasn't having it…"

"No, no, it's okay," Alicia insists. "It's okay, it's not like she's got school tomorrow. And she only wanted to make you feel better, I think I'll let her off. She's got her priorities right. It'll be okay," she murmurs, squeezes Ruby's shoulders. "This is the guy you've been seeing for the last month or so, right?"

Ruby nods slightly, trembles.

"It'll be alright. I know it's shit now, but it will, you'll see. You can do so much better than him, Ruby. It doesn't matter what he said, okay?"

"He said I'm so uptight he thinks I've got a stick up my…"

"Then he's an idiot, isn't he?" Alicia tells her firmly. He's an idiot, and you can do so, so much better than him. You don't need men like him."

"I…" Ruby shuffles awkwardly, closes her eyes in despair, and it's more than just the breakup, Alicia realises all of a sudden, protectiveness stirring within her. There's something else going on, something she clearly hasn't divulged to Ethan, something that's upsetting her far more than just this.

"I'll go and… check Chakra's okay," Ethan covers hurriedly. "Is…" He turns to Alicia, clearly out of his depth. "Presumably she… she can…"

"She can get herself ready for bed, but if you could listen to her read for five minutes, that'd be great," Alicia tells him gratefully. "I think she's got some weird forgotten fairy tales one on the go at the moment, but you can…"

"It's fine. It's fine, I can manage." Ethan staggers out of the room slowly, pulls the door to behind him, and then they're alone.

"I…" Ruby shakes her head, dissolves into tears again.

"What is it?" Alicia presses carefully. "Ruby? You can tell me. I'm the last person to judge, god knows I've been there, done it all. Did he… did he hurt you?"

Ruby shakes her head quickly. "No. No, nothing… nothing like that. It's just a… I want to say bad breakup, but I don't think it's even worthy of being called that, we were only seeing each other just over a month, I'm being ridiculous…"

"No, you're not," Alicia tells her firmly. "He had no right to say that to you, it doesn't matter if you were together a few weeks or a few months…"

"I'm pregnant," Ruby blurts out. "I'm pregnant, and it was all going so well until I told him tonight, I really thought this might be it, I thought I loved him, and then I told him I was pregnant and he took it… I don't think he could have taken it any worse, I mean, I knew it wasn't going to go well, we've only known each other a few weeks. We're not… we're not even close to being ready to settle down with each other, are we, at this stage, let alone have a baby. But I had to tell him I couldn't… I know you would have, if Chakra… and I totally get that, I don't blame you, but I can't, I can't do it, I can't imagine not keeping it and he needed to know and I didn't… I knew it might not work out, we've only known each other a few weeks for goodness sake, I was so stupid, I should never… I don't even know how it happened, we used protection, I just… I can't believe I let it happen, I should have been more careful, it must have been the first time, I'd barely even met him, I was just so stupid and now he…"

"Ruby…"

"He doesn't want to know!" Ruby sobs. "He told me to get rid of it and I can't do that, I _won't_ do that, and then he just kind of…" she shudders. "He clearly has no intention of becoming a father, and I don't… I mean, it's okay, I… after the way he reacted I think that's only for the best, I can't… I had no idea he had such a foul temper but then I didn't really know him, did I… God, I've been so stupid! And I don't know what to do, I'm keeping the baby, I can't imagine doing anything else but I can't imagine doing it on my own either, I just don't know what I'm going to do!"

And with that, she dissolves into hysterics, shoulders shuddering violently, breathing coming in short, sharp gasps, and for a few brief moments, Alicia is back in the bathroom, back clutching a positive pregnancy test and the most peculiar mixture of excited and utterly terrified, and then she isn't, then she's standing on the kerb outside the ED waiting for Bea to bring her car around to pick her up, sixteen weeks pregnant and broken and bruised and Ethan gone, at a total loss as to how she's going to do it all by herself, her whole world collapsing around her and no clue how to stop it.

Alicia remembers that dark place only too well.

"Ruby," she murmurs. "Ruby, listen. It's going to be alright," she promises, hugs her tightly, suddenly feels a tremendous sense of responsibility towards her because yes, she's her friend, and she would have gone above and beyond to support her through anything, of course she would have. But this… this is so painfully close to home and she knows only too well how it feels, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, she's absolutely determined to protect Ruby from as much of it all as she possibly can, somehow ensure that she actually gets to enjoy her pregnancy, doesn't have to spend it all in the state of utter panic and denial and pure fear and unhappiness she had to endure through her own.

"How can it be?" Ruby whispers tearfully. "How can it…"

"Because you don't need him," Alicia tells her firmly. "You're so much better than that, Ruby. You're going to be more than fine without him, you'll see. You'll be a brilliant mam…"

"I don't know how, though," Ruby panics. "I don't have a clue what I'm doing with a baby… I don't…"

"Hey, I know for a fact that isn't true. You were brilliant with Chakra, you went totally above and beyond…"

"But I don't have a clue what to do with my own baby! I… I was stupid, I guess, I always wanted children, I want this baby, but I… I don't know, I…"

"You imagined you'd settle down with someone first, maybe get married, move in together at the very least, all that," Alicia finishes for her. "But you will know what you're doing, I promise you will. It just… I don't know, it just happens, when it's your baby, it's instinctive. You see them and then you fall completely in love and everything just clicks, that's the last thing you need to worry about. But you don't need to think about any of that now, okay?" Alicia tries, knows full well that it won't work, that there's no way Ruby can possibly believe her just now, but it's all she can do, all she can possibly say. "How many weeks are you?"

Ruby closes her eyes despairingly. "Five weeks. I found out this morning, I… I just had a feeling, you know? It would have been the first date, I'm such an idiot…"

"Then you've got plenty of time," Alicia reassures her. "You don't need to know anything right now, I promise. You've got months to worth that out yet. If you're sure this is what you want, then that's enough, okay? You remember, right, I didn't have a clue what I was doing with Chak until she was born, and even then, I still felt like I was just making it all up as I went along. It's normal to feel like this. But you're going to be an amazing mam, I know you are, you just need to give yourself some time to get your head around it."

"I'm happy," Ruby insists. "I really am, I… I never planned it like this, but I can't imagine not going through with it…"

"I know," Alicia agrees quietly. "I know, I understand. It's okay. You've got plenty of time. You don't have to tell anyone just yet- I mean, I'm not advocating doing it my way, obviously, I think we all know the way I handled that part is pretty much the stupidest way of going about it ever."

Ruby smiles weakly. "I mean, I wasn't going to say anything…"

"Hey, you can say it," Alicia teases. "You learned everything you could ever possibly need to know about how to deal with pregnancy from me. But you're going to be fine. You're not going to have any of the… the problems… I had, you're going to be absolutely fine. And I'm here, okay? Anything you need, I'm here, even if you just want to rant about the doing it by yourself thing."

"Is it…" Ruby trails off, shakes her head. "Sorry…"

"No, it's okay…"

"Is it awful?" Ruby asks tentatively.

"What, doing it by yourself? I mean, I'm probably biased about the pregnancy part, but it's not going to be like that for you, you're going to be fine. Apparently, most women even enjoy it. I mean…" Alicia sighs, can't bring herself to lie to her. "There are times it can feel a bit lonely, yes. But you've got me. I know it's not the same, but you have. And once you have your baby it'll all be worth it, you'll feel like you couldn't possibly need anything else."

"It's still so early though," Ruby worries. "I'm… I mean, it could all still go wrong at this stage, couldn't it. I don't know if I should be trying to get my head around it all or not at this point."

"You need to try," Alicia tells her quietly. "I know, I… I get it. I really do. But you don't want to end up in the mess I was in by the end of it either. And you need to have a quiet word with Jan, at the very least."

"Iain's going to work it out, if she takes me off duty and puts me on…"

"Maybe he will, but you don't want to keep quiet and regret it if something were to happen, do you? You need to tell her. If you want to come with me, I will, okay? You don't have to do it by yourself. Everything's going to be fine," Alicia promises, rubs her back gently. "You'll see. Everything's going to be fine."

 **Did anyone see it coming? I've dropped a few subtle hints, but they were quite a few chapters back now, so they may not have been all that obvious! But if you think about things coming in a full circle, there's a massive hint there re what's really wrong with Chakra...**

 **Thank you as ever Lewisek18, BrightWrites and guest for taking the time to review the last chapter, I'm so glad you're picking up on the continuation, I always worry because of the wait between chapters that will be lost a bit so it's lovely to know it's definitely still there I _think_ Alicia is going to go into labour in three chapters' time- I know lots of you have been waiting for those chapters and I promise they are on their way soon! **

**Reviews would be wonderful as ever, and feel free to make any suggestions/tell me what you don't like too, constructive criticism is always appreciated too! And I really do promise I have updates for my other stories on the way in the next week or so.**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	47. Chapter 47

**Chapter 47**

 **31 weeks**

"I look bloody massive," Alicia complains, collapses onto the sofa, leans backwards, presses her hands around the curve of her bump. "I look like an actual whale…"

"No, you don't, don't be so silly," Bea insists, curls up on the sofa next to her with the pizza boxes. "It's just that angle, you're going to look bigger if you lean back like that. Trust me, you look anything but massive. No one looking at you is going to think you look anywhere close to massive, I promise. You look seriously amazing for thirty-one weeks. Right, you take the pizzas." She hands over the boxes, moves towards the doorway. "Do you want a beer?"

"Is that really a good idea?" Ruby calls worriedly from the kitchen.

"New research says yes!" Bea calls back. "One really isn't going to do any damage, is it? It'll help her relax, if anything. And I promise I'm going to help you dump the Paeds crash bleep on someone else tomorrow. And if I can't, I'll make Mrs Beauchamp pull me out of resus and I'll take it off your hands myself, okay?"

"I can manage." Alicia reaches out for the can being offered out to her, winces. "I've been doing it for the last thirty-one weeks, I can cope with another four…"

"But you don't have to," Bea tells her firmly. "Someone else can take it on. We're going to have to take it in turns when you're on maternity leave, aren't we, we might as well get used to it now. And don't tell me you're not exhausted."

Alicia sighs, dumps the pizza boxes on the coffee table, pulls her legs up underneath her as best she can while she's the size of a house. "It's really not that bad," she lies, folds her arms over her belly before they can stare- or before she can convince herself that they're staring, at least, because it's Bea and Ruby, and she knows full well they would never do anything to make her feel uncomfortable, it just isn't that simple. "If Jade and that lot would just stop laughing at me whenever I have to run upstairs, it wouldn't be that bad, anyway. She keeps looking at me like she thinks I'm disgustingly huge…"

"No, she doesn't. She's just worryingly immature for someone about to qualify, that's all. Put her and Marty together for more than five minutes and they're practically lethal." Ruby watches Alicia carefully. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine. I'm fine, she's just really, really active." Alicia closes her eyes, leans back, well and truly done with it all. "I can't do another nine weeks of this, I just want her out. Not really, obviously. Not yet. I just… I don't know, I just want to jump ahead nine weeks, or something, I just want this to be over…"

"It might be more like five weeks," Bea points out apologetically. "You've got your appointment with the obstetrician tomorrow, remember, she might decide…"

"Oh, don't," Alicia complains. "I don't know what I want, I don't want to have to do this for another nine weeks but then for her sake I'd far rather go overdue…"

"I think that's normal," Ruby tells her gently, seems to know exactly what she's thinking in that moment. "I think that's perfectly normal at this stage. You must be so uncomfortable."

"I thought babies weren't supposed to move around all that much when your amniotic fluid's practically non-existent, Sh… she totally didn't get that memo."

"And you have totally named her," Bea teases, reaches for the pizza. "It's obvious. You can tell us, you know. You do realise we're not going to tell you we hate it, right? Well, unless you want to call her Beyonce, or something. Then I'll tell you I hate it, but that's not me being mean, that's me looking out for my honorary niece. Trust me, if you'd had a lifetime of Britney jokes, you'd feel the same. And she can't go by Bea, that's already taken."

Alicia rolls her eyes light heartedly. "Okay. Okay, I promise I'm not going to name her Beyonce. Or after any celebs. But I'm still not telling you."

"You do realise we're going to find out in a few weeks anyway, right?"

"I know. But I'm not completely decided on it yet. I don't know, it might not suit her…"

"Nah, it will. It definitely will, everything suits new-borns, doesn't it? And then it'll just feel like her name by the time she's a couple of weeks old."

"I'm still not telling you. I might take one look at her and change my mind, I can't do that if I've already told you all what I'm naming her, can I? Her middle name's Callie, that's all you're getting."

"Charlize? Siobhan?"

"I'm still not telling you."

"Fine. Fine, but I'll get it out of you, just you wait. Come on, you need to eat." Bea takes the pizza box from Ruby, offers it out. "Ruby isn't going to finish a whole pizza by herself, and I'm not touching your revolting coconut cheese, or whatever it's made from."

"Every time I've tried to eat for the last few days I've ended up with horrific heartburn…"

"And you still need to try," Bea reminds her gently. "Just a few more weeks, okay? And then this will all be over, and you're going to need the energy."

Reluctantly, Alicia takes a slice of pizza, tries to work out how she's supposed to fit a plate on her lap around the cumbersome swell of her belly. "And I've still got to do all the stuff like washing her clothes, and checking the baby monitor works, and putting her cot together…"

"Oh, I think it's probably best you let Bea and I do that for you," Ruby tells her worriedly. "You don't want to be trying to assemble furniture at this stage, we can handle that."

"You don't know what you're doing with flat-packed furniture any more than I do…"

"We'll work it out. And if we can't, your dad offered, right? There's still plenty of time. And you're going to get at least a week of maternity leave to yourself, whatever happens, aren't you?"

"The obstetrician said a caesarean at thirty-six weeks at the earliest…"

"And you're going on maternity leave at thirty-five weeks, right? So you've got a whole week to wash all the baby clothes and get everything organised at the very least. It'll be fine."

Alicia shakes her head. "I don't know why I'm worrying. I'm not going to get her home for at least a couple of weeks…"

"And the last thing you're going to want to do once she's here is worry about laundry and furniture assembly and whether you've got enough nappies," Ruby finishes for her. "It's understandable. But you've still got plenty of time before she's here, it'll all be fine. And you've got us. If anything doesn't get done in time, you've got us, we can sort it for you."

"You've already done more than enough, though," Alicia protests. "You're going to have to share this house with a screaming baby in a few weeks, I know that isn't exactly what you signed up for, I can't ask you to…"

"You're not asking," Bea tells her firmly. "You're not asking, we're offering. And any baby of yours is going to be totally chilled out after all Ruby's mindfulness indoctrination," she jokes. "And even if she does cry twenty-four seven, we don't mind, okay? We're in this for the long-haul, she's not going to be a screaming baby forever, is she?"

"We know what we're signing up for, Alicia," Ruby reiterates. "We're not going to change our minds and move out as soon as your baby's here, I promise. And we're not doing it out of pity, before you ask. We're doing it because we want to. We're your friends, we're not going to abandon you just because you're having a baby. And we're always here, if you need anything. It's bound to feel a bit overwhelming at first, but you're not doing it by yourself. Just because Ethan isn't here, that doesn't mean you're on your own. You've got us. And I know we're not Ethan, I know it's not the same, but that doesn't mean we can't support you."

"Thank you," Alicia whispers. "I can't thank you enough for everything you've done, both of you…"

"It's what friends are for. Now will you please eat that pizza? You've got a twelve-hour shift and a midwife appointment tomorrow…"

"Oh, don't remind me," Alicia groans. "And the bloody obstetrician, I've been trying to forget about it."

"It won't be that bad," Bea tries tentatively. "The obstetrician might decide you don't need to go down the caesarean route after all, you don't know she's going to…"

Alicia sighs, runs her hands over her bump. "Except I do. She still hasn't turned, I don't need a midwife to tell me that, and they've all made it quite clear they won't let me have a natural delivery with a breech baby. So we're going to have to go through all that on top of everything else." She shudders, dreading it all already. "If it wasn't for the obstetrician I'd be tempted to just, I don't know, conveniently get caught up in resus a few minutes before I'm meant to be in Obstetrics, or something… Not really," she adds quickly, sees the looks of concern on her friends' faces. "I know, they're important, and I'm about as far from an obstetrics expert as it's possible to be, I can't exactly monitor everything myself."

"I don't think that's advisable anyway," Ruby adds quickly. "Either way, taking responsibility for your own treatment really isn't a good idea, antenatal care or otherwise…"

"I know. I know, it's okay, I'm going to go. I just wish it was all over, that's all. And I think it's supposed to be the last antenatal appointment at thirty-one weeks, isn't it, except they'll probably make me carry on coming in every couple of weeks until I have this baby anyway because they just enjoy torturing me that much…"

"Hey, Sorcha isn't trying to torture you," Bea tells her, loads more pizza onto Alicia's plate. "I mean, I totally get it must feel like that, I do understand. But this is temporary," she reminds her. "Another ten weeks and it's over, and then you never have to see Sorcha again."

"Ten weeks can't come soon enough. Do you think…" The words come tumbling out of her mouth before Alicia can stop herself. She's been thinking about this a lot lately, tried to cast it to the back of her mind but it never quite seems to last. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, forget I said anything…"

"Do we think what?" Ruby asks carefully. "You can tell us…"

"Do you think I should call him when I go into labour?" Alicia blurts out, before she's quite realised what she's done. "Or when… I don't know, advanced warning of whenever I'm booked in for a caesarean, if Sorcha and the obstetrician end up forcing me into that. I mean, I'd send him a text and leave it at that, I've been doing that with normal stuff occasionally, just… you know. Just in case. God only knows if he's reading them, but at least if I do that I can tell myself I've tried, can't I? But he doesn't even know I'm still pregnant, I can't tell him I'm in labour by text…"

"No, you can't," Bea agrees. "I… I don't know. I really don't know, Leesh. I think… you need to be realistic about this," she tries at last. "However you end up delivering, you need to put yourself first. Especially… especially given the circumstances. We… we know that you might find the whole giving birth thing a bit traumatic, the last thing you need is to be worrying about contacting Ethan. I don't think you're obliged to do anything, if you want to try and get hold of him, then fine. But you shouldn't feel you have to. Not until you're ready. If you're too busy giving birth and looking after your baby girl to try calling him at first then you'll have nothing to feel guilty about, lovely. Absolutely nothing. He lost the right to instant notification when he walked out. And you don't know if he'd pick up the phone, anyway," she reminds Alicia gently. "I'm not saying don't try. I'm just saying don't get your hopes up. But it's going to be a really special time, isn't it, when she's born. I know it's not going to be quite the way you might have hoped, but she'll be fine, there's no reason to think she won't be. You don't want to let Ethan ruin that, whether he does it by picking up the phone or not."

Alicia nods weakly. "I just wish he was here," she whispers. "I… I should have got my head around it by now, I _have_ more or less got my head around it now, I think reality's still going to hit a bit when she's finally here but then the rest of it's all going to balance it out, isn't it? Or I hope so, anyway. I'm hoping I'll be so preoccupied with her it'll be better, if anything, I won't miss him so much. But still. I just… I don't know. I know I should be over it now. But it still hurts."

"But you can talk to us." Ruby squeezes her hand gently, expression worried. "I know it's not the same, but if that doesn't happen, if you're still finding it hard once she's here, if you're finding it all harder to cope with, even, you can talk to us."

"I'll be fine…"

"I know. I know you will be, but still. Just in case," Ruby says softly, and it's so clear what she's worried about, so clear that it's crossed her mind as it has Alicia's that after the way her pregnancy so far has unfolded, she's surely at a greater risk of developing postnatal depression once this is all over, that it's something to be mindful of, at the very least. "We're here. Anything you need, you only have to tell us. We can give you a night off whenever you want if you feel you need…"

Alicia shakes her head weakly. "Thank you. When she's a bit older, maybe. Right now, I can't imagine wanting to let her out of my sight like, ever."

Except she's going to have to leave her. She's going to have to leave her in SBCU at least overnight, she won't be able to stay with her constantly until she's out of hospital, however much she desperately wants to, she's going to have to leave her…

She's trying not to think about it. She's done rotations on SBCU and NICU as part of her paeds training; she knows too much already, almost, doesn't want to think about it anymore than she has to because she's already prepared, already knows exactly how awful it's going to be. She's experienced the medical side of things, knows the harsh reality of what will happen to her daughter in the weeks after she's born and now it's her own baby, suddenly she can't distance herself emotionally any longer.

She's going to have to abandon her on a hospital ward. She's had her with her constantly for the last seven months, and that's been a huge struggle in itself, god knows she's hated it at times, but it's never been because she didn't want her, it's just been… complicated.

"Do you think she'll know?" Alicia asks faintly. "Do you think she'll… do you think she'll know that I'm not there all the time?"

It's an absolutely ridiculous question; coming from her, of all people. It's ridiculous, but now the thought has entered her head she just can't shake it, can't reassure herself as she would her patients' parents with the reminder that their child won't possibly remember any of this because now it's her baby, she can't see past that initial stage, can't dismiss the worry that her daughter is either going to be painfully aware of the absence of the only person familiar to her or so out of it that she'll hardly be conscious at all. If anything, that only seems to make it all worse.

"She'll be fine, lovely. She'll be absolutely fine, it's going to be for, what, two weeks maximum," Bea assures her gently, grips her hand. "And you can spend all day with her if you want to, you can come home to sleep and be straight back in there first thing…"

"If they don't force me into a caesarean, though," Alicia points out anxiously, panic rising within her and it's ridiculous, she knows it is, it's a total waste of time and energy to be worrying about something she has absolutely no control over before it's even happened but she just can't shake it, protectiveness and maternal instinct kicking in and she can't seem to think rationally anymore, can only picture her SBCU patients, tiny, incubated, multiple interventions and she can't bear thinking about the fact that it's going to happen to her daughter, she just can't…

"And if they do, we'll make sure she's not on her own," Bea reminds her. "We've been over this, remember? We can do one of us with you and one of us with her, and that's without including your mam and dad, they'll want to be there for you both, won't they? And then we'll get you up to SBCU as soon as we possibly can, if you do have to have a caesarean. She'll be fine. And she'll know our voices, won't she, we spend enough time with you," she teases. "She'll know we're not you, but we won't be total strangers. And even if you end up having a caesarean, they shouldn't need to keep you in more than a couple of…"

"I'm not staying in overnight," Alicia tells her firmly, absolutely adamant, unshakably so because she's already thought about this, been panicking about it on and off ever since the possibility of a caesarean was raised and her mind is made up, it's not happening.

Bea sighs. "You do realise the usual hospital stay post caesarean is…"

"Three to four days, I know, it's still not happening!" Alicia snaps. "I'm not doing it, I can survive without a catheter a few hours early if it comes to it and I can manage my own…"

"Alicia…"

"There's no point trying to change my mind, Bea! I'm not doing it, I'm not staying on a maternity ward for a moment longer than I have to…"

"And we can help you get up to be with your baby in SBCU as soon as you're well enough," Ruby covers quickly. "I promise we will. You don't need to be discharged to go up to SBCU, we can…"

"I know that!" Alicia retorts, and she's coming across as a total moody cow, she knows she is, she's lucky Bea and Ruby haven't found themselves somewhere else to live already she's been so awful to be around for the last few months but this is surely going to be it, if she keeps overreacting and taking it all out on them like this they're going to be moving out as soon as they possibly can. "I know that, I'm still not staying on a ward! It's her that's high risk, not me, there's no reason I can't just discharge myself and…"

"There is if you end up having a caesarean," Bea sighs gently. "Even if you deliver naturally, it's really not the best idea, and you know that, you of all people know. But you can't just discharge yourself after a caesarean, lovely, you're going to need to be monitored to make sure…"

"I'm not staying on a ward!" Alicia protests. "I'll come back down and let someone examine me if I really have to, fine, but I'm not staying on a ward, I'm not doing it…"

"Why not?" Ruby presses. "Alicia? If you tell us what you're worried about, maybe we can…"

"You can't," Alicia insists. "There's no point, you can't, I'm just going to have to not…"

"You don't know that." Bea grips her hand gently, glances across to Ruby, expression worried. "We've managed to deal with everything else so far, haven't we? Or make everything a bit more bearable, anyway…"

"There's nothing you can do, though!" Alicia argues. "I'll be fine, they're stretched enough in obstetrics as it is, we're all stretched, I can just…"

She's been through this. She's thought about nothing else for weeks, on and off since the possibility of a caesarean delivery was first mentioned and she can't see a way out of it that isn't discharging herself as soon as physically possible and managing her own care from there, she's coped with post-delivery before in the ED, she knows what she's doing, it'll be fine…

"No, you can't…" Bea tells her firmly. "So don't even think about it. You can't discharge yourself after a caesarean, that's total madness. It really won't be that bad, I promise. We can make sure there's someone with you and someone with your baby, between us, it'll be fine, if you're worried about being examined I can…"

Alicia shakes her head. "It's not that. It's not that, I… I've checked," she admits. "Maybe that was stupid, but I'm glad I did, I… Holby lets partners stay overnight on the maternity wards," she forces out at last, shudders, a thousand possibilities racing through her mind and this is exactly why she isn't doing it, exactly why she's going absolutely nowhere near a ward at night. "And I'm not… I am _not_ staying overnight on a ward off my face on morphine stuck to an IV and a catheter and whatever else with random men in and out all the time, I'm not doing it, obstetrics can say whatever they like but my stress levels are going to be through the roof if I have to do that, I can't look after a sick baby if I'm barely functioning myself and that's exactly what's going to happen if they make me stay on a maternity ward, it's not happening, it's not fair on Cha… on her, if nothing else. They can…" She closes her eyes, shaking, and she's trying so hard to fight it off but her brain is absolutely determined to keep reminding her of that night, won't let her shake it, and it doesn't even have to be that night, Alicia realises, panicked, because it could be like the night he threw her through the window, it wouldn't matter, either way she'd be too out of it to stop a potential attacker and all he'd have to do would be pull the curtains around her bed and pin her down and she'd be helpless, it could happen all over again and she'd be powerless, too drugged up on morphine and what if she froze like last time, would she be able to scream…

'I'm not putting myself in that position again," Alicia insists, tries her best to stop her voice from shaking but she just can't quite manage it. "I'm not doing it, and… and obstetrics can tell me all they like that it's not going to happen on a maternity ward, but I don't care… if… if he could, anyone could, new fathers aren't any less likely to be rapists just because their partners are…"

"Alicia…" Bea tries gently, expression softening in understanding. "Alicia, listen…"

"I'm not staying on a ward, Bea! He shouldn't have… no one could have known he was a… that he was capable of… if he can do it then it's not just the partners on the labour ward I have to worry about, is it, it's the male obstetricians, too, men shouldn't even be allowed to be obstetricians, I don't want…"

"Alicia," Bea says firmly. "Alicia, listen, lovely. We can fix that. Okay? If that's all you're worried about- well, not all you're worried about, but you know what I mean. If that's why you want to discharge yourself ASAP, then you don't need to. We can work around it. You're not sacrificing your own health and wellbeing because you're scared of being on a ward overnight. And no, before you say anything, it's not stupid," she reassures her gently, wraps one arm around Alicia's shoulders, reaches for her phone with her free hand. "It's so far from stupid. I don't blame you, you've got every right to feel scared after everything that's happened. Okay? So don't you dare apologise. Or worry that you're not handling this well, or you're letting your baby down, or _anything_. Don't even go there. You're doing brilliantly, I'm so proud of you."

Alicia shakes her head, eyes filling with unexpected tears and she's sick to death of being so ridiculously hormonal all the bloody time. "I'm not, though…"

"Yes, you are. You're nearly through this, Leesh. Another few weeks and this will all be over, and then if you're absolutely positive you don't ever want to do this again, you can go and have your tubes tied," Bea teases gently, puts her phone down again.

"What were you…"

"I'll tell you in a minute. Once I get a reply."

"Bea…"

"Hey, trust me, okay? I'm sorting it. We've managed to find a way around everything else, haven't we, between us? There's absolutely no reason you need to discharge yourself early to avoid being in a situation you know you aren't going to be comfortable with, that's madness. Have you thought about packing a hospital bag?"

"I've got another nine weeks…"

"Maybe five," Ruby points out gently. "And you're going to feel more in control if you have everything sorted. And then if you manage to avoid a caesarean after all, one of us can bring you in anything you need once you're in labour, you don't have to carry everything around with you if you don't want to."

Bea's phone vibrates gently against the coffee table, and she reaches out, pauses for a moment, silent as she scans the screen.

"Alicia? Alicia, Mrs Beauchamp's sorting it," she says. "Okay? Obstetrics owe her a few favours, she's going to pull some strings and make sure you're given a private room once you're admitted, however it happens. So you've got nothing to worry about. It's going to be like when you were in after the ambulance crash, except you'll get to bypass the ward bit entirely and they'll put you straight in a private room, you don't have to worry about anyone else having access…"

"Obstetrics can't guarantee that, though," Alicia protests. "They… no one knows when it's going to happen, do they, they can't just book out a side room the moment I hit thirty-six weeks, by the time I go into labour there might not be a private room available they can give…"

"Let Mrs Beauchamp deal with that. Have you ever known another department argue with her? If Mrs Beauchamp says you're definitely getting a side room, you're definitely getting a side room. It'll be fine, I promise. You can relax, you can stay in hospital until you're well enough to be discharged, whatever happens, you've got absolutely nothing to be afraid of. Everything's going to be fine. And then we'll get you upstairs to SBCU as soon as we can. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. I promise."

Alicia bursts into tears.

 **This is going to be quick because I desperately wanted to get something up for you all today, but I'm away on a course working on my second language and totally exhausted, so I'm off to bed before I fall asleep on top of my laptop! Thank you so much everyone who has stuck with this story, and a special thank you to Katharine Rosenstiel, lewisek18, guest, BrightWrites and Katie for your reviews of the last chapter, you are truly the most wonderful, supportive group of people, and it is honestly so lovely to know you picked up on all the small things I tried to weave into the last chapter. To Katharine- Ethan may be getting worse, yes- or is he getting better...? ;) In other ways, of course, sadly there's not yet a cure for Huntington's.**

 **Very very briefly- I was surprised to learn when researching for this story that many British labour wards now allow 24/7 access to new fathers. I have total mixed feelings about this, because while I can completely understand that their support must be a godsend for many women, I can also imagine how for someone like Alicia, being so vulnerable and surrounded by strange, physically healthy men must be incredibly traumatic. I don't have a solution, but I did want to try and reflect the problem as respectfully as possible.**

 **My Heart Was Home Again update is coming when I'm more awake! And please do let me know what you think via review or DM, your messages are always the nicest things to receive. Thank you so much for sticking with me,**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	48. Chapter 48

**Chapter 48**

"I'm _not_ going to change my mind, Mammy!" Chakra protests, voice laced with distress. "I don't want to do it, I'm sure I don't…"

Alicia sighs. "I know. I know, but humour me, okay? Please? I know you don't want to do it, and I get it, it's alright. I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to do, sweetheart. I promise. But you might decide you still want to do your group thing with your friends, in an hour or so. Or even the whole thing. You are allowed to have a last-minute change of heart, that's totally fine. And it's going to be really hard for your friends to work out how they're going to do your group routine thing without you right before they compete it, isn't it? I'm not trying to make you feel guilty," she adds quickly. "It's entirely your decision, Chak, you can do whatever you want, okay? Everyone will understand. I know you're sure you aren't going to change your mind right now, but you might feel differently later, and we don't want to have a last-minute hair and makeup panic, do we? We did that a couple of months ago when I came straight off night shift and took you straight to your competition, remember, and you had to be there really, really early. That was awful, I'm never doing that again. So we can do your hair and put far too much makeup on you now, and then you can still stick with your decision, that's totally fine. But then you're keeping your options open, aren't you? Yeah?"

Chakra nods reluctantly, sits down on the edge of Alicia's bed. "I'm definitely not doing it though."

"Okay. Okay, that's totally fine," Alicia tells her, playing along, still very much hoping for a last-minute change of heart. "I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to, it's okay. We could still go and watch your competition though?" she suggests carefully, rummages through her drawer for the hair paraphernalia. "What do you think? And then you still get to see all your friends, that might make you feel better."

"Miss Yekaterina will make me do it, though," Chakra worries, fidgets, pulls her knees up to her chest. "If I'm there anyway Miss Yekaterina will say I'm fine to compete, and I don't want to…"

"I know," Alicia soothes, sits down beside her, gently pushes Chakra to her feet, pulls her around to stand in front of her, begins brushing her hair into a ponytail. "I know you don't, and that's okay."

"I just…" Chakra shudders, manages to pick exactly the wrong moment, spectacularly ruins Alicia's ponytail attempt. "I don't want to wear a competition leotard," she whispers, almost as though she's ashamed. "I don't want to…"

"I know, and I'm really, really glad you told me. That was really grown up of you, wasn't it? I'm so proud of you," Alicia tells her sincerely.

Because she is. Somehow, she's entered a strange parallel universe in which she's having to praise her daughter for telling her she's too self-conscious to compete in her gym competition because of the costumes she was quite happy with just a week ago, and she's seven, she shouldn't have any concept of body image whatsoever aged seven, she shouldn't even care…

"Miss Yekaterina says once we commit to something, we have to do it, or it's not fair on everybody else."

"Yep, and that's really, really good advice," Alicia agrees. "Can you stay still for me, please, while I do your bun? Good girl. But this is an exception, okay? Do you know what that means? You do? Then you know Miss Yekaterina isn't going to be angry with you, because I'm going to explain, and she'll understand. You're not pulling out of your competition because you don't want to do it, are you?"

"I want to do it," Chakra says quietly. "I want to do it, I just can't…" She shakes her head. "If I could do it in normal clothes, it would be okay…"

"I know. I know, so we'll tell Miss Yekaterina that. That isn't an option, you know that, don't you? British Gymnastics or whoever it is who organises your competitions have rules for a reason, don't they? They can't have everyone turning up in whatever they want to wear, it would be chaos."

"And they have to be able to see your alignment."

"Hmm?"

"Your alignment. Gymnasts don't wear leotards because they're pretty costumes, they wear them so the judges can see their alignment."

"Oh, I see. Maybe I'll forgive them for torturing the kids who aren't model skinny, then," Alicia mutters under her breath. "So do you… do you think people are going to laugh at you?" she asks carefully, well aware that she's on dangerous territory now, reaches for the hair pins. "Chakra? Has someone said something to you?"

Chakra shakes her head.

"Okay. Okay, then…"

"I just know everyone's going to be looking at me and thinking I'm fat," Chakra says quietly, stares firmly at the floor, and Alicia thinks her heart might just break.

She's gone horribly wrong somewhere. Clearly, she's messed up, made a total mess of being a mother somewhere along the line because there's no other explanation. She should have been able to protect her daughter from this, should have taken action long before things reached this point, should have come up with something, anything, to avoid this because she's setting her up for a lifetime of problems and she doesn't deserve this, she's too young, this could follow her for years yet, ruin her life before she's even out of primary school and Alicia doesn't know how to stop it.

"Chakra," Alicia sighs desperately, smooths down her hair with the hairspray as quickly as she possibly can and she doesn't care if this is far from the best gym hair she's ever done, pulls her back onto her lap, can't bring herself to let her go. "You know that isn't true, don't you? Yeah? I know that's how you feel, I'm not trying to invalidate that. I get it. You're allowed to feel like that, I really, really wish you didn't, but I'd much rather you told me how you were feeling. I can't make it better if you don't tell me, can I?"

 _And I can't make it any better if you do tell me, either, and I'm so sorry_ , Alicia sighs to herself internally. _I'm so, so sorry…_

"I need you to know it isn't true though, sweetheart," Alicia murmurs. "Okay? I know it's not that easy, I know you can't believe it just because I'm telling you, but I'd really like you to try. No one else is going to look at you and think you're… fat. I promise."

She can't even say it. She can't even say that word, can't quite bring herself to utter it and she can't work out whether it's because she just can't bear to think about it in this context, in relation to her not-quite eight-year-old daughter and her mental state, or whether it has more to do with her own problems than anything else, whether she's projecting, whether this is all her fault because she never properly dealt with it all herself, whether she's somehow managed to instill it all in her baby girl and she just hasn't realised, and now it's too late…

"You're supposed to think that, though," Chakra argues. "You're my mammy, you have to tell me that…"

"No, I don't. I'm a children's doctor too, aren't I, so I…"

"But you're not _my_ doctor." Chakra curls into Alicia's chest, wraps her arms around her waist.

"No, not officially. But unofficially you've basically got your own personal paediatrician and emergency doctor rolled into one, you know that, right? Although I'd really prefer it if you don't make too much use of the emergency part. But that doesn't matter, okay, that's not the important part. The important part is I'm your mam, and I love you, and I'd like to think I'm pretty good at children's medicine…"

"You passed all your exams to be a consultant. And Mrs Beauchamp said you got one of the highest grades she's ever seen."

"You're really good at boosting my confidence, aren't you? Do you think you could write that down for me?" Alicia teases. "The point is, I know what I'm talking about. Okay? You're not fat. You're perfect just as you are, but I think you'd feel a lot better if you were eating properly. And you're perfect however you are, alright? Healthy isn't a number on a scale. I promise. I wouldn't tell you that if it wasn't true. Right, come and have a look in the mirror for me, please. Do you think that's going to pass Miss Yekaterina's hair test?"

Chakra nods uncertainly, apprehensive.

"Okay. Are you going to do some of your pirouette things and your upside-down contortion stuff, so you can see if you think it's going to hold?"

"No, because I'm not doing the competition."

"That's fine," Alicia plays along. "That's totally fine, I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to. So we'll hold off on most of the makeup part for the moment, then, if you're sure you're not doing it. Or we'll try and make it look natural for now, anyway. But you can just have gym hair for the sake of it today, can't you, there's nothing wrong with that. I do mine like that sometimes, minus the glitter spray. Come on, then, look at me, please. Good girl."

"Can I keep the makeup on if I definitely don't want to do it?"

"Nope. Nope, you can't, because you're seven."

"I'm eight in two weeks."

"And that's still not old enough for makeup that isn't for a gym competition. You know you don't have to keep going if you don't want to, Chakra, right? Or if you want to keep going to gym but you don't want to do the competitions anymore, that's fine, too. And you can change your mind, if you want to," Alicia emphasises, aware that she's babbling but she just can't seem to stop herself, out of her depth and she doesn't have a clue how to deal with this, nine years of pairing paeds training with the ED and she still doesn't know what she's doing with her own daughter, useless… "If you make one decision now and you want to change your mind at any point, that's totally fine. Miss Yekaterina will understand. We all just want you to be happy, sweetheart, we don't like seeing you so upset. So if you want to take a break from it for a while, or if you just want to take a break from the competition part, that's okay, you can do that…"

"I do want to do it," Chakra says quietly.

"Which part?"

"All of it. I _do_ want to do it, I just… I just can't!" Chakra protests urgently, meltdown coming out of nowhere. "I can't, Mammy, I can't…"

She's making it worse. She's trying her hardest to help and she's just making it all so much worse, it's like everything she ever learnt in the eating disorder clinic during her rotation at GNCH was completely and utterly useless because it doesn't _work_ , it didn't always work then on her patients in the unit and it's certainly not working on her own daughter, she's making a total mess of it all…

Suddenly, Alicia has a whole new level of respect for Bea and Ruby, for everything they did for her during those awful few months she was like this- was she worse? She couldn't possibly have been any worse than this, surely? Surely she wasn't ever quite like this? She was functioning, she was _pregnant_ , after all, she couldn't have looked this thin…

"Hey, hey, it's okay. I get it, sweetheart, it's alright. If that's how you feel, then that's fine, we can keep trying if that's what you want to do," Alicia soothes, because she's messed it all up again, she's tried to second guess and she's managed to get it completely wrong again, she's useless at this… "I'm not going to put any pressure on you to do anything you don't want to do. It's the same as school, okay?"

"It's not though!" Chakra insists quickly. "It's not like school, I _like_ going to gym…"

"Okay. Then it might make you feel better if we go to your competition anyway?" Alicia suggests carefully. "Yeah? What do you think? You can still go and see all your friends, can't you, we can go and support them."

"Is Ethan going to be upset?" Chakra asks worriedly.

"What? Why would Ethan be upset?"

"Because we told Ethan he could come and watch my gym competition, and now I'm not going to do it," Chakra says quietly, clings, stares firmly at the carpet.

"Oh, no, no, no, don't be silly, Chak. Of course he won't. He loves you. We both love you, all we want is for you to be happy, sweetheart. We're both just sorry you're feeling so rubbish at the moment, we just want you to feel better. Do you know how I know that? Because he loves you just as much as I do, and I know that's all I want. You've got absolutely nothing to worry about, nobody's going to be angry if you decide you don't want to do your competition. Okay? Even Miss Yekaterina. You just do whatever you feel you need to do, that's totally fine. Okay, can you tilt your head for me, then? Nope, the other way, please."

"You can't just decide you don't want to do things, though," says Chakra quietly, blinks, peers at the compact in Alicia's hands. "Please can I use your bronzer?"

"No, you can't, we're doing minimal show makeup because you told me you're sure you aren't doing your competition, remember? If you change your mind, you can have bronzer. I'm trying to avoid a last-minute panic if you change your mind but I don't really want to put more makeup on you than I'm wearing if I don't have to either, you don't need makeup. You're already gorgeous, aren't you? And no, I can't just, I don't know, decide I don't want to go to work on Monday," Alicia agrees. "It doesn't usually work like that. But that's because I wouldn't really have a reason for not going to work other than I just didn't want to, and that on its own isn't an excuse. But it's a bit different for you, isn't it? I know you're not just making a fuss because you don't feel like it, it's okay. I trust you. I know you're trying, sweetheart. And you might feel like you can do your next competition, maybe? You've got another one in three weeks, I think, or something like that, I know because I'm working, but Auntie Bea's going to take you, that's okay, isn't it?"

"Ethan won't be here then, though."

"Well, Ethan and I haven't actually discussed when he's going back to Glastonbury," Alicia tells her, rummages for the mascara, wonders if she can get away with brown or if Miss Yekaterina will pick up on it the moment she gets Chakra in through the door- _if_ she manages to get Chakra in through the door.

"But he'll have to go home again eventually."

"Yep, he will. But that doesn't mean he can't come back and see us again, does it? I'm sure he'll want to. You've got plenty of other gym competitions you can bring Ethan to, today isn't it."

"He'll start to get worse, though," Chakra practically whispers, can't meet Alicia's eyes. "Won't he, Mammy?"

What on earth is she supposed to say to that?

"… Yes. Yes, he will," Alicia tells her, fights to keep her tone level because that isn't going to help, because yes, sometimes she can think of nothing else, and yes, she's been struggling with this ever since he told her all those years ago, ever since life as she knew it ceased to exist and that whole nightmare began. "But I don't think that's going to happen for a while just yet. Not much, much worse. I know it might seem bad, but… look, when we went and we visited Ethan the first time, I hadn't seen him since before you were born, and I was expecting him to be much worse than he actually is by now. It's… people who have Huntington's disease keep getting worse slowly, you know that, right?"

"Until they die," Chakra finishes quietly.

"Yes… Yes, until… that happens." Alicia hugs her to her chest tightly, and she's going to have too much makeup smeared all over her top, going to have to change, but she doesn't care. "But it's… look, Huntington's isn't my specialism or anything, but I've done a lot of research into it." And that's the understatement of the century, of course; Alicia almost doesn't want to think about all the hours she spent trawling through medical journals and her old textbooks and Ethan's abandoned research papers at hers and anything else she could get her hands on, middle of the night and well into second trimester exhaustion, badly in need of sleep and suffering at work the next morning for it but she just couldn't drag herself away, had to know what she was dealing with, what Ethan was suffering through without her and she just couldn't do anything about it, couldn't get through to him, he was gone…

"That's not going to happen for a really long time," Alicia promises carefully, all-too-aware that this isn't a promise she can be sure she'll be able to keep. "I don't want you to worry about that, alright? You leave that to me. We just need to focus on you at the moment, don't we? Everything's going to be fine."

"I don't want Ethan to die."

"No… No, I… I don't either," Alicia admits shakily. "But we're… we're all going to die eventually, darling. We just… this is no different, really, with Ethan, we just have more of an idea of how it's going to happen. And… it might… it _will_ , happen for him a bit earlier than for most of us…"

"It's not fair," Chakra whispers, and Alicia almost doesn't want to look at her because she knows her eyes are going to be filling with tears.

"No," Alicia agrees. "No, I know it isn't. But… look… we all know we're going to die eventually, don't we? We just don't usually know when, or we have less of an idea of when, anyway. But we do. With Ethan, we do. So we're just going to make the most of every minute, aren't we? Hey?"

"Are you going to die?" Chakra asks anxiously, watches her mother pleadingly.

"Not for a really, really long time, Chak. You don't need to worry about that for ages, okay? You're stuck with me for years and years and years yet. I promise. So what are you thinking?" she asks carefully, presses her chin to the crown of her daughter's head. "We could still go to your gym competition, couldn't we? And then you could see all your friends, still. But you wouldn't have to do anything you don't want to do, we could just sit and watch everyone else. Or we could not. We could go and do something else today instead, it's completely up to you."

"Is Vasilisa going?"

"I don't see why she wouldn't be. She's in your group routine thing, isn't she, I haven't had a text from Miss Yekaterina saying she isn't going today. We had that a couple of months ago, remember, and I had to drop you off early so you could practice with someone else in her place."

"Aza."

"There you go, your memory's much better than mine. I could text Vasilisa's mam?" Alicia suggests casually. "I could text Alyona and double check Vasilisa's going, if you want me to?"

Chakra hesitates for a moment, and at first, Alicia doesn't think she's going to go for it.

She had it all planned out. She was going to win Chakra over in stages, convince her she wanted to go and support her friends anyway and get her in through the doors first (and she needs to check the address, Alicia reminds herself, she knows it's a leisure centre somewhere just outside Holby but her head is a mess of new responsibilities she needs to process at work now she's made consultant and appointments she has to get Chakra to next week in a desperate bid to tackle her problems and everything she needs to sort for Chakra's birthday and she just can't think straight), ensure she was more or less ready to change her mind and do her gym competition anyway and hope that once she was there, once she'd seen her friends all getting on with it normally and realised there was really nothing to worry about, she'd change her mind and this would be one less battle she'd have to try and fight with her, because admittedly perhaps it's minor, the least of her worries when it comes to her daughter just now, but it just feels like yet another setback. What if she just carries on getting worse and worse like this, what if in a few weeks' time she can hardly get her out the house at all, what then…

At last, Chakra nods, and Alicia could practically cry with relief.

"Okay. Okay, I'll go and text Alyona now then, shall I? And are you going to get dressed? Yeah? We can't go anywhere while you're still in your pyjamas, can we?" Alicia tries to encourage her, knows by now that it won't work unless Chakra wants it to, but still half hoping that if she can only convince her that she really does want to go, perhaps she'll start to believe it. "I'm just going to go and… text Alyona. Okay? And talk to Ethan."

 _And try and track down your gym stuff, and smuggle it into the car before you notice_ , Alicia adds under her breath as she heads down the stairs, enters the kitchen, rummages through the washing basket.

"Is she alright?" Ethan asks, glances up, sat at the kitchen table. "Leesh?"

"I don't know," Alicia admits quietly, and she's fighting so hard to keep her voice level, to hold back the tears she knows are practically inevitable at this point, but it just doesn't work. "I don't know. I don't have a clue what I'm doing with her anymore, Ethan. I just don't know."

 **I'm so, so sorry! I've had a stupidly busy few weeks and I was supposed to have some time this week to write this chapter, but then life happened and that time got taken up with something else. This was supposed to be half a chapter, but I've been feeling so guilty and worried you'll all have lost interest that I wanted to get something up for you today!**

 **Thank you so, so much Katharine, BrightWrites, Katie and guest for your lovely reviews, you were all extra lovely this time and I am so sorry I kept you waiting for so long! Please do let me know what you think of this one- you can either have the other half of this chapter next or a past chapter (32 weeks...), let me know if you have a preference :) And please let me know if you're still reading this!**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


	49. Chapter 49

**Chapter 49**

 **32 weeks**

She's had two full days off work and she's spent most of today sleeping, trying to get herself back onto a normal schedule again after a week of nights, and still tonight Alicia is completely exhausted.

Her back is aching like she didn't even know was possible pre-pregnancy (and she's had two days away from the ED, she dreads to think how uncomfortable she's going to be by the end of tomorrow's shift), her feet have practically vanished at this point but she's perfectly aware her ankles are ridiculously swollen, and her hands seem to be following suit. She finally gave in at the weekend and removed her rings, accepted they were going to be stuck on her fingers until after she'd given birth if she didn't and she thought she was alright with it, she really did, but she cried for a good half hour after she took off the ring Ethan bought her for her birthday last year and she still can't quite explain why it mattered to her so much, why that of all things reduced her to tears all over again.

Maybe it's all finally starting to sink in now. She's terrified- and that's nothing new in itself, Alicia feels as though she's spent the whole of her pregnancy completely and utterly terrified about _something_ \- that reality is finally starting to hit her now, that she's only managed to just about struggle through this far because she's been so shell-shocked, unable to process it all, just a little in denial but now it's hitting her, and she's afraid that once her baby is finally here it will all be too much and she won't have Ethan, won't have work, won't have anything that provided the basis of her life before and she'll succumb to postnatal depression, will end up failing her daughter even more spectacularly than she already has.

She loves her. She hates being pregnant with everything she has but she loves her baby more than she could ever have imagined, and she's elected to practically double her training to make consultant in the name of wanting to work with children; it's not as though her heart wasn't already set upon becoming a mother at some point in the future. She's been so certain that all of her problems will fade away into nothing the moment her baby is born, so sure that as much as pregnancy has been her idea of utter hell, all she wants is to hold her baby, cuddle her, love her, bring her home and learn to be her mother, and she knows it won't all be perfect, she really, really does, but up until now she really, truly believed that it would all be alright as soon as she had an actual baby to show for the last seven months, and now, all of a sudden, she's starting to doubt herself.

What if it isn't alright? What if she comes out and she just looks like a miniature Ethan, what if she can't even look at her without thinking of everything she's lost and bursting into tears? What if the exomphalos is worse than it's looked on the scan, what if there are other complications and her baby is stuck in SBCU for months, what if when she finally gets her out she can't bond with her properly, or what if she can't bond with her from the moment she's born regardless? Her poor baby is only going to have the one parent, if she turns out to be completely and utterly useless there's no one else to fall back on, she can't let her down, her baby needs her to hold herself together, _somehow_ … What if there's no real reason for it, what if she just can't cope once she's born and she can't explain why but it ruins everything, destroys her relationship with her daughter before she's even a week old and she can't claw it back, what if she's just totally useless at being a mother…

Her baby rolls gently within her, nudges, and it's the most adorable thing in the world, Alicia ponders as she rests her swollen ankles on the coffee table, rubs gently at the curve of her bump through her t shirt.

"I do love you," she murmurs, feels like a complete idiot doing this, but she should start making an effort at this point, surely? The last thing she wants is for her baby to only know her voice from when she's dealing with patients and growing increasingly frustrated, or near-constantly on the verge of tears at home with Bea and Ruby, after all. "I do love you, and I'll prove that to you in a few weeks, okay? I promise. I couldn't love you any more than I already do, that would be impossible."

There's an uncomfortable tightening sensation across her abdomen, dull increase in the aching of her back, just for a moment and then it's gone, and Alicia groans, closes her eyes, completely and utterly sick of being the size of a whale. And then there's a sudden flurry of movement, something pushing out from within her; and perhaps that explanation makes no sense whatsoever but it's the only way Alicia knows how to describe it, out of her depth, body doesn't even feel like her own anymore pregnancy is so far set in and she just wants this to be over, just wants an actual, proper baby to show for this part of it all…

Slowly, already slightly revolted in anticipation, Alicia lifts her top, winces a little before she can stop herself, involuntary.

Something- a back, or a head, Alicia assumes, she'd know if her baby had finally decided to turn and engage her head properly, surely? - juts out of her skin alarmingly above her belly button, grotesque, misshapen, makes her look even more ridiculously huge than she already is and it's setting her on edge, sending her mind into complete and utter overdrive and she's trying so hard to remind herself that it's normal, that in just a few weeks now she'll have her baby and she won't resent this part any longer, because she'll know her, then, she'll be her baby girl and she'll do anything for her, Alicia knows she will, doesn't need to see her to be sure of it because she loves her so much already.

She can't imagine it all having gone any other way, now, and just a few months ago, she never, ever imagined she could feel like that towards her pregnancy. It wasn't that she didn't want this baby, it was never like that; it's… it's hard to explain.

She always wanted her. It wasn't as simple as just wanting a baby; she wanted her, right from the beginning, feels almost certain those first few months nearly destroyed her the way they did because she couldn't bear the thought of losing her, needed _her_ and nothing else would do because it was too late, she could feel her, how could she ever have settled for trying again after that?

But at the same time, it feels as though she's had to give up Ethan to keep her tiny, perfect human, and that's the part of it all that's been so, so hard.

Why can't she just have them both? Why did it have to go like this, why couldn't they be like every other couple, why couldn't they be normal, why couldn't she have Ethan beside her, supporting her, through the complete and utter hell that has been thirty-two weeks of pregnancy, and maybe it wouldn't even have been hell at all, maybe if Ethan had been here…

Her back tightens again, dull throbbing along her spine, gentle pulling across her bump, and Alicia grimaces, cups her hands gently around the body part protruding out of her, wills it to stop.

"Leesh?" Bea calls. "Leesh, I'm going to make a start on dinner, you're in tonight, right? We've got the most random selection of food in the fridge ever, I think it's, like, worse than my med school days and everything, but I was thinking I could probably throw together some kind of…" She pauses in the living room doorway, frowns worriedly. "Leesh? You okay, lovely?"

"I'm fine. I'm fine, it's nothing." Alicia shudders, forces herself to focus, pain gradually fading until all that's left is the constant aching that's practically become her new normal by now, only to be expected after a week of erratic shifts and limited opportunities for even five minutes to herself. "I'm just tired, that's all. I'm fine. I'll come and help you with dinner…"

"No, you stay there, you just relax and I'll…"

"What, and risk you burning the kitchen down again?" Alicia teases. "Not a chance. I'm fine, I'll be there in a minute." She leans back into the pillows heavily for a moment, closes her eyes, smooths her t shirt down over her bump.

"Are you sure you're…"

"Bea," Alicia insists gently, though it's gratefully that she accepts her friend's hand pulling her up off the sofa. "Honestly. I'm okay, I'm just sick of _this_ , that's all." She gestures to her bump awkwardly, suddenly self-conscious, painfully aware that she's most definitely waddling everywhere at this point. "I'll be fine."

 **I know this is short, and I am so, so sorry! I've had a lot going on and I just haven't had the time or the energy to write anything decent until this weekend, and I wanted to get something up for you today because I feel terrible and I'm worried you'll all lose interest! The good news is I'm in a better place and I can get back to writing this, so I promise you will get a proper full-length update soon. In the meantime, I hope you don't hate me too much for this one!**

 **Reviews would be wonderful, and thank you so much Katie, BrightWrites and my two guests for reviewing the last chapter, and a special thank you to Lewisek18 whose review yesterday was a massive, massive help for me finding the energy to do some writing this morning. You are all brilliant, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate your support.**

 **I've also just posted a chapter of a potential Holby City story in which Alicia features- if you watch Holby, I would love to know what you think, but I'm mentioning this more because I want you to know that while it's something I felt I needed to do with one of the storylines at the moment, this story is and will always remain my priority. Please don't think I'm abandoning you! This story takes an awful lot longer to research and plan for at the moment, but I'm spending more time on this one than anything else I write, I promise.**

 **Once again, I'm so sorry for the delay and the length of this one!**

 **-IseultLaBelle x**


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